Cranberry Sauce
by paperbkryter
Summary: After the events in Swan Song, Dean tries to settle into his new life. A chance encounter on a family outing and a late night phone call draw him back into the life he left behind, and a bittersweet reunion he never could have imagined.
1. A Day at the Fair

The fun part about writing fanfiction is the freedom. Why would anyone want to write for the show itself (well, besides the paycheck) when you're pretty much locked onto one course of direction?

As a follow up to my last post-Swan Song fic, _Deus Ex Machina_, I decided to go a different direction.

Just for fun.

* * *

This house wasn't like the one she had before. That one had been new, built only a year before she moved into it. Dean remembered thinking that it had a "new house smell." You could still catch a whiff of paint and wood glue, vinyl and whatever chemical they had used to treat the wall-to-wall carpeting. It looked like every other house in the neighborhood, all of them being built by the same developer. It lacked personality.

He had been glad to see Lisa move, and not just because of the house, but because of the things that had gone down there. In his experience, places where bad things happened were forever tainted. They were left scarred – if the wound healed at all. Sometimes, like in Lawrence, infection runs rampant. Bad things continue to happen over and over again. Dean lost everything he ever truly loved in Lawrence, Kansas. He would never set foot there again.

Dean knew he was dreaming because he was in Lawrence. Specifically, he was in Stull Cemetery. It wasn't a part of the graveyard he recognized. This place looked new, modern, like Lisa's old house. Manicured lawns stretched up and down gently rolling hills for as far as the eye could see. Aside from the rows of perfectly spaced, nearly identical headstones, it could have been a golf course. The grass was a brilliant verdant green, the sky a cloudless shade of brilliant blue, and a gentle breeze shook the trees lined up around the perimeter fences. Their leaves rattled, saying "shh, shh" as if to remind visitors it would not be polite to wake the dead.

In his dream Dean could also hear the sound of his boots crunching along in the gravel, and his heart pounding hard in his chest as he climbed toward a small tree at the top of a low rise. In his mind he could hear a familiar voice telling him that people sometimes planted trees as grave markers. Dean hadn't planted this tree. He wondered who had.

There was already a gravestone. It was cold, dull, and just like all the others, save for the words carved into the gray stone face.

**Samuel Winchester**

**1983 – 2010**

**Beloved Brother**

Dean stopped. He took up the shovel he had slung over his shoulder, and started to dig. The earth yielded easily. A rich, fertile smell rose up from the good Kansas soil – at first.

Dream Dean dug with determination, while the sleeping Dean tossed his head and moaned. He'd been here before. He knew how the scent of the Earth changed the further he dug, first to the sour smell of sulfur, then to the metallic stink of fresh blood, until finally he was assaulted by the stench of rotting flesh – the scent of Hell.

_Stop. Please. Just stop. STOP! _

But he couldn't stop. He kept digging, despite everything, despite his promises. He wouldn't stop, not until he heard a soft voice speaking over his shoulder, Sam's voice calmly inquiring….

"What are you doing?"

In his dream Dean always turned quickly, startled, but the dream ends there. He never confirms Sam's presence. He never knows if it was truly his brother, Sam's spirit, or Lucifer, who spoke to him. He always jerks awake with a cry, and this night was no different.

"Sammy?"

His voice was a hoarse whisper as consciousness returned and his dream voice became reality. He automatically glanced to his right. Sometimes his nightmares woke Lisa, sometimes they didn't. He hadn't woken her this time. Lisa continued to sleep, face down, one arm curled beneath her pillow and her long black hair tousled around her head. Dean lay his head back down. He reached out with a trembling hand and slipped a finger through a single coil of her hair. Her warmth and the steady rise and fall of her breath he found comforting.

After a moment he rose from the bed, moving carefully so he wouldn't disturb her. The other house had been new, and carpeted – silent. This house was older, with wooden floors that creaked and moaned, but Dean knew from experience where not to step. He didn't sleep well. Lisa assured him his insomnia wouldn't last, that eventually he'd relax and settle in to his new routine, but Dean had his doubts.

He'd been a Hunter since he was four years old. He had spent years cultivating a nocturnal lifestyle – because bad things came out at night, mostly. Sleep deprivation was part and parcel of the job, and so were nightmares. All Hunters had nightmares, because nobody chose to be a Hunter, every one of them had a tragic history. Every one of them had been dragged in kicking and screaming against their will.

There was only one Hunter, perhaps only one man, who had been to Hell and back quite literally. Dean's nightmares weren't always as benign as this one. Sometimes he remembered. Lately, since Stull, he imagined. Not long after he'd joined the Braden household he'd been shaken awake by Lisa in the middle of the night. His eyes were burning, his body shivering as if he had plunged into an icy lake. He'd looked up into Lisa's worried expression.

"You were crying," she'd told him. "Was it Sam?"

Dean remembered the nightmare in fragments, disjointed images that recalled, made his chest ache. He'd told Lisa Sam had died. She assumed it had been on the job. She imagined he'd died saving someone, or someone's child, much as he and Dean had saved her child. Dean never set her straight. Sam had saved the world, the entire human race, by giving up his living soul to the Devil himself. His torment would be endless. Lucifer would show him no mercy.

In his nightmares about Sam in Hell, it was Dean who wielded the instruments of torture. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't stop himself. No matter how much Sam screamed and begged for mercy, Dean could. Not. Stop. Lucifer stood behind him wearing Sam's face, praising him in Sam's voice for work well done. Sometimes though, Lucifer wore his father's face, and Dean heard John's whisper in his ear: _"I told you you'd have to kill him."_

It was 5 a.m. in the morning, and this was the second time Dean had been up since they'd gone to bed the night before. Three hours earlier he had gone downstairs for a beer. He'd flipped through a few television channels before going back to bed. Now his beverage of choice was coffee and instead of the television he sought out Lisa's laptop.

There was another habit that was hard to break. Dean kept his eye on things, checking the news for anything that seemed to fall outside the ordinary, paying particular attention to his own immediate vicinity. Dean's primary concern was for his family, which now consisted of Lisa and Ben. He was no fool. He knew whether he was Hunting or not, he was the number one most wanted on both angelic and demonic hit lists. Neither group would hesitate to use his relationship with the Bradens against him, so Dean stuck close to home and kept his ear to the ground.

So far the past twelve months had been quiet. Nobody, nothing, came for him, not even Cas. No angel or demon or any other nasty creature came anywhere near Cicero. In fact, there had been very little supernatural activity throughout the entire state of Indiana. It had struck Dean as almost being _too_ quiet, so much so he'd picked up the phone and called Bobby, whom he'd not seen, nor talked to in months.

Bobby's first reaction to Dean's query had been typical, and not entirely unexpected. "What the hell are you complain' for?"

"I'm not complaining. It's just….weird."

"No. It's not. The angel and demon gangs are too busy taking pot shots at each other, and the near Apocalypse opened up a lot of people's eyes. For every Hunter we lost, three more sprung up out of nowhere to take their places. "Bobby paused. "Dean. You're off the hook. Relax and enjoy it."

"But…."

"Kid, just live. It's what your mother wanted. It's what Sam wanted. They never got this chance. Don't blow it by looking for trouble where there ain't any."

What Bobby didn't understand, that Dean himself was only just beginning to understand, was that Dean needed to be needed. He'd lost everything with Sam – his purpose in life, his very identity. Lisa and Ben had gotten along just fine without him. They liked having him around for sure, but they didn't _need_ him. Dean felt as if he'd been set adrift in a lifeboat without a paddle. He was alive but not getting anywhere, and in that scenario, what was the point of living?

Being honest with himself, Dean realized there were only two things keeping him from blowing his own brains out. The first was simple – he'd made a promise to Sam. The second was that he knew what awaited him after death. He'd been to Heaven, and he'd been to Hell. The unpleasantness of Hell was a given, but Dean had also found very little enjoyment in Heaven. Either way, Sam wouldn't be there. Sam was in a special Hell, trapped there forever with two powerful beings that had every reason to hate him. Dean had nothing to live for, but he had nothing to die for either.

"I just exist," he murmured. "Even the damn coffee maker doesn't need me." He dropped a pre-measured filter "pocket" into the machine and pushed a button. Almost immediately coffee began pouring into a carafe. "Next they'll invent a pot that pisses for you." He slipped a mug in to the spot where the carafe sat, let it fill, and then swapped it for the carafe again. With coffee in hand he sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the laptop.

Nothing. Not a blip on the supernatural radar anywhere.

A scuffling sound and the creak of floorboards suddenly made Dean tense. He flinched, turning quickly to confront whatever had entered the kitchen, despite immediately having some idea as to its identity. It, was a who, and the who, was Ben. He shuffled into the room with his hair sticking up in all directions, yawning and rubbing his eyes, but his eyes were bright and awake when he looked up and gave Dean a grin. Dean grinned back.

"Did I wake you up, sport?"

"Nu-huh," Ben ambled over to the pantry and pulled open the door.

"You want me to make some pancakes?"

"Nu-huh." A box of toaster pastries was procured. "I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. "

Dean sighed. He shut down the computer. It was just as well there was nothing going on that he had to worry about, because they had big plans for the day. It would be one of their first major outings as a family. They were going to the state fair, which was probably why Ben had gotten up so early. This was the first time he'd be big enough to ride the adult roller coasters. Dean preferred to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground, but he'd agreed to ride with him. Ben was understandably excited about the trip.

"When are we leaving?" Ben asked, bringing his toasted pastry and a glass a milk to the table.

"Dunno. When your mom wakes up we'll ask her."

This made Ben scowl.

"What?"

"It's Satuday."

Dean frowned, puzzled. "Yeah, and?"

"Don't do what you usually do on Saturdays."

"And what's that?"

Ben chewed and swallowed. "You'll say, 'I'll go wake Mom,' but then you'll go up there and have sex and then both of you will fall asleep until ten."

Shocked, Dean's mouth fell open. "What?"

"It's true," Ben stated, taking another bite of his breakfast.

"Wha…where….who taught you about sex?"

"School."

"What?"

"Sex Ed. Didn't you have sex education in school?"

Dean flushed. He didn't just have Sex Ed in school, he'd had _sex_ in school. "Yeah, but I was twelve!"

Ben just shrugged. "Guess they decided they'd better start sooner these days."

"Jesus wept." Dean shook his head.

He felt gypped again. This time robbed of the fatherly duty of giving Ben the "Birds and the Bees" speech. He'd tried to give his very carefully prepared treatise on sex to Sam once, only to have his little brother look at him like he was a complete moron. Sam had been fifteen, but Dean knew for a fact he'd missed the sex education classes at least twice due to switching schools at the wrong time. It had never occurred to him that not only did Sam know all about sex, but Sam was _experienced_ in it. He'd lost his virginity two full years before Dean did. He'd been thirteen and the circumstances were still clouded in mystery. Dean didn't ask, and Sam didn't tell. They'd both been too young, Dean thought, but then, they'd always had to grow up faster than other kids.

"There's one thing I don't get though," Ben said.

"What's that?" Dean asked, somewhat hopefully.

"Why do you call Mom, 'Gumby Girl?'"

Dean stared at him.

Ben stared back. "What?"

Picking up his coffee, Dean rose from the table. "I'll tell you when you're twelve."

* * *

Parked in Lisa Braden's garage, gathering dust beneath a tarp, was a large, dark part of Dean's past – quite literally. Twelve months earlier he'd parked her there, hiding her from prying eyes and potential enemies. He hadn't driven the Impala since then. Instead he drove a foreign import Lisa bought. In twelve months he'd ruined two starters, because he wasn't used to driving a car with an engine you couldn't hear running. It had air conditioning, seat belts and airbags, intermittent wipers, heated seats, and a trunk the size of a breadbox. It also had cruise control, which Dean absolutely refused to utilize.

"That's not driving," he said in disgust.

He called the Impala, "Baby." He called the import something that was far from politically correct and that made Lisa smack him the first time she'd heard him say it.

"Not in front of Ben!" she'd hissed. "Dean, that's racist."

"It's a car!"

Lisa glared at him, so Dean was rude to the car only when nobody else was around. When they were around he called it "The Pink Puke."

"It's _Champagne,_" Lisa corrected.

Ben, naturally, sided with Dean on the subject of the newer ride. "Looks pink to me," he said. "Let's paint it black."

When he and Dean high fived, Lisa stalked off in a huff. However, she would not let them paint the car black, nor any other color. She did allow Dean to hide a lock-box under the driver's seat. Inside was a gun. Lisa was nothing short of prudent.

They drove the Pink Puke to the fair, and for once Dean wasn't particularly sorry it had a rather unique color as there were dozens of similar makes and models in the crowded parking lot. Like the Impala, the Puke stood out in sharp contrast to the other cars. It would be easy to locate in a hurry. He left the gun where it was, thinking it wouldn't be a good idea to wear a holstered weapon on a roller coaster that would flip him upside down more than once. If the gun fell out, it could kill someone – not by going off – but by hitting them in the head. Instead he had a knife secured at one ankle beneath his jeans. It wouldn't fall out of its sheath, and would be more effective against demons anyway. It was Ruby's knife.

Dean had been to many fairs and carnivals, but never for fun. His visits to such places in the past had always been for business, not pleasure. To be there not looking for some evil creature or cursed object was at first strange, but Ben's excitement was contagious, and within a short time Dean was having the time of his life. The food alone was worth the trip, but there were a million other things to see and do. They rode rides, played games and watched a tractor pull. Lisa insisted they look at the agricultural exhibits and walk through the animal barns. She came from a small farming community in rural Indiana. Going to the fair was like going back to her roots.

The target shooting game was no match for Dean Winchester. He won Lisa a giant stuffed dairy cow, which made her laugh. Ben won a goldfish at the ring toss game and named it Bubbles Walenski. When asked why Bubbles Walenski, he just shrugged. It sounded good, he said.

Lisa leaned over to Dean and whispered, "it sounds like a stripper," and both of them giggled like children.

For Dean, it was one of the best days he'd had in a very, very long time. He should have known he wouldn't make it home on that high, because everything he ever did always seemed to turn sour.

The day had gone by quickly, and so had the daylight. It was dark by the time they headed for the parking lot. The daytime crowds of families had given way to the younger, rowdier set, and Ben was exhausted. He trudged wearily along between them. Dean carried Lisa's cow. She'd been put in charge of Bubbles. Whether it was habit, or just common sense, Dean kept a wary eye on their surroundings as they made their way across a nearly empty field to where the car was parked. As people left, the lot cleared out in patches, with "islands" of vehicles scattered randomly around the field. One island stood between them and the Puke, a group of three cars parked beneath a lighted utility pole. Within the light there stood a group of five or six people.

Dean immediately went into defense mode. He handed the cow back to Lisa as he knelt and pretended to tie his shoe. The knife went from its sheath to his belt. "Keep walking. Don't say anything."

As they grew closer it became obvious what was going on. There were six people in total. Four stood in a semi-circle around a fifth, who had the sixth pressed up against the side of a car. There was blood on the sixth man's face, and on his attacker's fist.

Dean's stride faltered, his memories of Sam's last day triggered by the sight. Castiel had healed his face, but not his mind. He still remembered the agonizing pain of his shattered bones, and the metallic scent of blood as it filled his sinuses – until the swelling ultimately destroyed his sense of smell. His mouth and tongue had continued to swell too, and the pressure inside his head had grown with every passing second. He'd sat there wondering which would kill him first – the fluid building up inside his skull, or lack of oxygen when his ability to breathe was finally squelched – and he hadn't given a damn either way.

Lisa's voice grew tense. "Dean, please. Don't. Just call the cops. Let them handle this."

He was about to reply, when one of the combatants looked up at them with a snarl. In the pale light shining down from the utility pole, Dean could see the man's face quite clearly, and just as clearly he could see the inky black color of his glistening eyes.

"No," Dean whispered. "They don't know how to handle this." He met Lisa's fearful gaze. "Take Ben to the car. Get in. Lock the doors. Under the passenger's seat is a box of salt….."

"Dean…."

"I've lost enough!"

His voice was still a whisper, but the frantic, frightened tone made it a shout. Without another word, Lisa took Ben by the hand and continued toward the car at a brisk pace. Dean turned and walked toward the gang of demons and their victim – smiling.

"Hey guys. Having fun?"

At the back of his mind, Dean realized taking on five demons with one little pig sticker was pretty much suicide, but something inside him had gone slightly off kilter when his father died. Hell, after the Apocalypse and what had happened to Sam – well, he wondered sometimes if it all hadn't destroyed the last bit of sanity he had left. What he was doing now definitely fell under the category of insane.

The first demon, the one who had snarled, turned to meet him, raising one arm as it prepared to send Dean on a one way trip to the hospital, or the morgue. Not all of them were strong enough to do the flinging thing, but apparently this one was no weakling. That was the problem with killing demons with a knife. You had to get close, and sometimes getting close was damn hard to do.

Dean quickly raised his own arms in a gesture of surrender. "Hey! No worries. I'm unarmed."

"Like hell you are," the demon spat. "I can smell the blood on that knife you carry."

"What are you," Dean muttered. "Part hound?" He braced himself for his flight.

"Wait!" Another demon approached. The meat he wore was a young blonde kid, a surfer type. He pushed the first demon's arm down and nodded toward Dean. "Are you in a hurry to go back to the Pit?"

At first Dean thought the demon was talking to him, but quickly realized he was addressing his comrade.

"He's an idiot with a knife!" The first demon raged. "Arrogant bastard thinks he can take us on? He deserves to die."

"Not arguing with you there," Number Two said, shooting Dean a baleful look of his own. "That idiot is Dean Winchester."

The remaining three demons, two of which were holding their victim, shifted their weight uneasily, and after only a second's indecision, made their retreat. Exiting the mouths of their meat-suits in whirling, screaming clouds of black smoke, they retreated into the night. The men they'd been wearing fell to the ground and lay still. The man they'd been beating slumped heavily against the car door, wiping blood from his nose on the back of his sleeve.

"Son-of-a-bitch," the first demon cursed. He shoved his companion's hand from his shoulder, and slipped away into the darkness, taking his meat-suit with him.

Demon number two looked at Dean and snorted. "It's a sad sign of the times," he said. "When our kind back down from an easy kill."

Puzzled by the abrupt departure of the first four, Dean shook his head. "Why are you?"

The demon smirked. "Because I'm not an idiot."

Between one blink of an eye and another, the demon was gone, leaving only the gang's victim and Dean standing beneath the light. The guy was staring at Dean with almost as much venom as the demons had, and as Dean approached he wrinkled his lip in clear disgust. Dean aborted his check on the downed meat-suits when the guy spoke.

"Don't bother. They're long dead."

Dean shrugged and checked anyway. They were dead, and cold. He wiped his hands on his pants. "Are you okay?"

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Really? 'cause I think a thank you would be appropriate," Dean said, puzzled by the guy's attitude. "Dude, I just saved your life."

"Those vermin couldn't have killed me. You wasted your time."

There was a quick burst of light, a sound like the rushing of wings, and the demons' victim was gone.

Dean blinked in surprise, and then scowled deeply, realizing he'd risked his life for another creature that wouldn't have thought twice about killing him. "Angel," he growled. "Dammit!"

Turning on his heel, he walked back to the car, still puzzling over the demons' odd behavior and musing at the fact he'd gotten away from an impossible to win situation unscathed – again. At the car he found a relieved Lisa and Ben waiting for him. He got in and locked the door. Lisa handed him the keys.

"Did you call the cops?" he asked.

She nodded. "They're on their way."

"Anonymous tip?"

"Yep."

"Good, let's go."

"What happened?"

Dean started the car, taking a quick glance in the rearview mirror. The demons, and the angel, were long gone. Had he been alone, he might have pursued them. They hadn't turned on him. He would have been easy to take out, but they hadn't attacked, and stranger still, they seemed to have no desire to either.

"I don't know," he said quietly.


	2. The Calling

If you'd have asked Dean Winchester where he'd end up after a lifetime of Hunting, he would have promptly replied: "Dead." Beyond that, before he actually went, he might have added, "Hell," but alive or dead he was going to avoid that at all costs. Been there, done that, had the scars to prove it.

He never could imagine himself working a real job, but he was doing just that. He didn't have to, Lisa had never asked that he support them, or even simply pay for his own keep, but Dean needed work to do, so he got a job.

Lisa was the primary bread-winner in the household. She'd built upon her knowledge of Yoga and fitness and opened her own business – "Body by Braden." She and her handful of employees offered classes in both traditional and non-traditional fitness programs and sold a number of different products from massage oils to vitamins, all organic. Dean mocked her for it, until he saw the dollar figures she was pulling. Business was booming, even in a craptastic economy.

Ben had been overjoyed when Dean moved in, for more than one reason of course, but primarily because he wouldn't have to have a babysitter. Lisa often worked into the evening and Ben was too young to leave on his own. Dean got a job days working for a local garage as a mechanic. He was in to work early, and thus home early, so it was Dean who picked Ben up after school and made the family dinner on the nights Lisa worked late.

After a year, life had settled into a new routine, and Dean accepted it, but he wondered how long it would be before he stopped looking over his shoulder? Or when he stopped being afraid that one day he'd come home to find Lisa and Ben gone - or worse - dead. What had happened at the fair made Dean jumpier than usual. He honestly expected to turn a corner and find a demon standing there waiting for him. He broke out in a cold sweat if Ben were just a few minutes late meeting him after school, or if Lisa didn't call to let them know she was on her way home. He paced back and forth if she were delayed.

Summer quickly gave way to Fall. Ben went back to school. Dean pulled the tarp off the Impala and made sure all his weapons were in working order. He double checked the hex bags he'd placed at all four corners of the house and the Devil's Traps he'd drawn beneath every rug. The pantry was stocked with salt and sage. He stashed iron bars in all the closets. Dean watched and waited, but no demons, nor angels, ever came looking for him.

He couldn't understand it. Had it been years earlier, Dean might have been psyched by the fact the demons seemed to fear him. It might have stoked his ego. Now it only worried him. Why weren't they coming after him? They had his scent. Hell, they had his license plate number. It wouldn't be that difficult to trace him, hex bags or no hex bags. Hunters were always on the move. Dean had been stationary for over a year.

Dean called Bobby, and Bobby refused to talk to him about it.

"Leave it alone, Dean!" he said, and the next time Dean called, Bobby hung up on him.

On Halloween, Dean argued with Lisa about permitting Ben to go out trick-or-treating. Ultimately the two of them reached a compromise, allowing Ben to go providing they both went with him. Ben was thrilled with the idea. He insisted they dress up. Dean refused until he realized dressing up would allow him to carry weapons. Lisa found pirate costumes. Dean went out armed with the Colt, Ruby's knife, and a flask full of holy water. He did an impression of Captain Jack Sparrow that had the neighbors howling with laughter, but all the while he kept a close eye on Lisa and Ben. Nothing happened. Lisa chided him for jumping at shadows and paraphrased Bobby.

"They're obviously done with you, Dean. Just leave it alone." They were lying in bed. Lisa wriggled closer, resting her head on his shoulder. She held him tight and kissed him. "Everything is going to be okay, now. You just need to have a little faith."

"In what?" he asked softly, bitterly. "God? The angels?"

"Sam," she whispered.

Later, when she'd fallen asleep, Dean went downstairs to the garage and pulled the tarp back from the Impala's door. He rummaged through her glove compartment until he found one of his old phones. The account was still active, he'd always kept several going, alternating them regularly to keep enemies at bay. The phone still worked, but the battery had run down. When he went back to bed he left it plugged into an outlet in the den.

Two days after that, on the night of November second, Dean sat in the den holding the phone in his hand. For a solid hour he stared at it, and then, overwhelmed with grief and loneliness, he flipped it open and dialed in to his voicemail. The first messages he heard brought on a bittersweet smile.

Ellen: "Hey Dean. Stop by next time you boys roll through Nebraska, we got a new case of that German dark ale you got such a kick out of and….what ? What do you want Josephine? (There was a pause, and the indistinct sound of Jo's voice in the background.) Jo says you owe her fifty bucks. Dammit, Dean. I told you to stop playing poker with her!"

Ash (cryptically): "Minnesota."

Ash (again): "Jo says you better give her that fifty you owe her or she's going to go postal on your ass."

Ash: (third time) "Sorry. She threatened me."

Jo: "I'm serious, Winchester. I have a gun and I know how to use it."

Dean tightened his grip on the phone and closed his eyes, his heart aching as he anticipated the voice he'd hear next. There were nine in total, all of them along a similar vein, messages left from calls made during various jobs over the course of more than one year. The first and oldest, like those that came before it, made him smile through the tears.

Sam: "Dean, where the hell are you? I just stopped in the Roadhouse and Jo is on the rag or something. (Jo's voice, clearly, in the background: "I heard that!") She practically assaulted me. Ash's got the location of the old Barker cemetery pinned down and I've found an incantation that might work. Get your ass out of bed and get down here. And by the way, now you owe _me_ fifty bucks."

Dean listened to all nine, and when he got to the last, a very abrupt message that consisted of nothing but Sam saying, "Shit!" He started over again.

And then again,

And again,

Listening until dawn, when the phone's battery finally lost its charge.

* * *

Friday night was movie night. This particular Friday was a good night to curl up on the sofa and watch a movie too. It was January and colder than a witch's teat outside (Dean had always meant to ask a witch about that saying, except that all his encounters with witches involved keeping them from killing him, not casual conversations about their breasts.) It had started snowing early in the day. Ben's school was cancelled. Lisa cancelled all classes at Body by Braden and took the day off. The three of them bundled up and headed out for some sledding. At one point during their outing, Lisa referred to Dean as Han Solo, prompting Ben to ask, "Who's that?"

Dean looked from Lisa, to Ben, and back to Lisa. "You've got to be kidding me?"

The _Star Wars _trilogy was immediately declared _the_ choice for movie night.

"And it's the original three, not that crap that came later," Dean announced. "That stuff with the Rastafarian gecko."

Lisa laughed, "Who? Jar Jar? I kinda liked him."

"Blasphemy!"

Halfway through _The Empire Strikes Back_, Lisa got up to make more popcorn. A moment later she came back into the living room holding Dean's cell. "Dean. Phone."

He scowled. Nobody he knew that had the number to this new phone would call him so late at night; that is, nobody but one person. He didn't recognized the number, but if it was who Dean thought it was, the call was important. He immediately got up and retreated to the den. His hunch had been right. The caller was Bobby.

"You remember," Bobby began without preamble, as if he hadn't stopped talking to Dean several months earlier. "A couple of sorry characters named Walt and Roy?"

"I hope you're calling to tell me they're dead."

There was a pause. "I'll take that as a yes, and yeah, they're dead. What's it to you?"

"I never followed through on a little payback I owed them. Remember me telling you about me and Sam's little trip to Heaven and back?"

"Walt and Roy?"

"Yeah, the bastards blew a hole in Sammy's chest big enough to drive a truck through, and then turned on me." Dean sat down on the corner of Lisa's desk. "I never got the time to hunt them down and stuff a little C-4 up their asses."

"They shot you?"

"Shotgun. Point blank."

"You near a computer?"

Dean rounded the desk and sat down in Lisa's chair. "Yeah, why?"

"Still have access to your old account?"

"Yeah, and again, why?"

"I wanna show you something. "

A minute later Dean was looking at the photograph Bobby had emailed to him. It was a crime scene photo, and could have been a staged version of what had happened to the Winchesters during their encounter with Walt and Roy. It was a motel room with two double beds, beds upon which Walt and his partner Roy had been killed. Both men lay on their backs, their chests bloody ruins from the blast of a shotgun at close range.

"This isn't why you called," Dean said quietly.

"No. it wasn't. There was a witness, saw a man go into that room right before she heard gunshots. Never saw anyone come back out." Bobby hesitated before continuing. "Witness said he was young, and tall, real tall, broad shouldered, longish brown hair. "

Dean's fingers curled more tightly around the phone. The description could have fit any number of people, but if it were any number of people in Bobby's mind, Bobby wouldn't have called. "You think…you think _Sam_ did this?"

"Honestly, I don't know what to think. Sounds like Sam. He'd have a bone to pick with these two same as you, and…."

"And what?"

Bobby's voice roughened. "They were on a case, tailing a pair of demon possessed cousins from Biloxi." He cleared his throat. "These two demons were sniffing around Stull Cemetery – that's how I got involved. I've been keepin' an eye on the place. By the time I got there all I found was a pair of rotting meat suits and Roy and Walt snuffed out in a motel in Lawrence."

His mouth dry, Dean closed his eyes. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. He could hear, and feel, his heart rate increase. "The door…."

"Nobody got in or out, if that's what you're thinkin'. I'da seen something. I've also talked to Castiel. He's got a crew working 24/7 putting seals back in place."

"Bobby, what the hell?"

"I don't know. Someone snuffed those demons – it wasn't Roy and Walt either."

"And you're sure the demons were killed, not exorcised, and they didn't smoke out?"

"I'm sure. Those demons were killed, not just their meat suits. Their throats were slashed wide open. Coroner didn't know what to make of it, considering everything else pointed to them dyin' months ago from blunt force trauma to the head."

Dean heard the hesitation in Bobby's voice. It was obvious the old man had more, but was reluctant to tell him. It was something Dean didn't want to hear. "What is it? What aren't you telling me?"

"Dean," Bobby muttered.

"What?"

There was another pause before Bobby continued. "Nothing got out of that trap, Dean. Nothing could. But are we sure about what went in?"

Dean closed his eyes again, rubbing at his temples. A headache was beginning behind his eyes. Maybe it was memory toying with him, creating psychosomatic pain where there was none. He remembered quite clearly the agony of his shattered face, but it had been more than overshadowed by the ache in his chest when he saw Sam throw himself through the door to oblivion. In reality there had been no sound when the portal closed, just the cessation of it, but in Dean's mind's eye he could still hear the reverberating peal that had echoed through his head. He likened it to the sound of a tomb slamming shut – Sam's tomb.

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "I was there, Bobby. Sam went in, and he dragged Adam – Michael – with him. Then the door closed. Nothing came out then either. Sam didn't kill Roy and Walt, and he didn't kill those demons."

Bobby cleared his throat. "I believe you, but…." He paused yet again, and just as Dean thought he would have to prompt him to continue, Bobby said, "Those demons….their throats weren't just cut, they were _torn_ open. And Dean….you should know….they were drained of blood."

Dean's eyes popped open. He sat up straight in the chair. "What?" He stood up. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. Saw it myself _and_ read the coroner's report. Those demons didn't just bleed out somewhere else, they were sucked dry."

"Are you still in Lawrence?"

"No. Kansas City."

"Stay there. I'm on my way."

When he hung up, Dean discovered his hands were shaking. He also discovered Lisa standing in the doorway. Their eyes met for a long moment, neither one of them speaking, until she broke the silence.

"Ben's asleep," she said softly. "We lost him somewhere in Cloud City."

"We can pick it up again later." Communication was never Dean's strongpoint, even when the situation wasn't as awkward. "I have to check this out."

"I know you do."

"Lisa, you don't understand…"

"Yes, Dean, I do." Her expression wasn't one of anger, or sadness, or even disappointment. It was one of resignation. "I understand you a lot better than you understand yourself. I always knew something would pull you back."

"It's Sam, I…."

She laughed slightly, shaking her head. "And I always knew it would be Sam." Their eyes met. "Go, Dean."

"Lise…" He went to her, brushing his fingertips against her cheek. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Just do me a favor though."

"Anything."

"The weather is bad, take the Jeep. Don't drag that old car out in this."

Dean nodded. He moved in closer, but she stiffened and turned her head away from him. He kissed her anyway. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Sure."

He moved past her into the hallway, his mind automatically turning toward the job, making note of what items he might need to get out of the Impala, calculating the quickest, best route to Kansas City. He didn't hear Lisa call his name the first time. It was the second time that caught his attention.

"Dean."

"Yeah?"

"Be careful." She took a deep breath. "I'll be honest. I don't want you to go. I'm afraid you might not come back, and I probably should be upset but…." A sad smile crossed her lips. "I'm not going to close the door. If it takes two months, or two years, I'll still be here."

Dean paused only a second before rushing back to embrace her. This time she kissed back.


	3. Witnesses

Neither the Pink Puke nor the Impala could have made it through the heavy snows burying the roads between Indiana and Missouri. Even the Jeep Lisa had bought Dean for Christmas struggled along through the bad weather, even with its fancy 4-wheel drive and traction control. Regardless, he would have preferred driving the Impala. Newer vehicles had too many bells and whistles, gadgets and gizmos. They were also made of flippin' plastic. Give Dean Winchester a great big combustion engine and a solid steel frame and he was a happy camper. As he drove through the night sitting on heated leather seats, listening to satellite radio, he realized they'd even screwed up the utilitarian Jeep.

In a motel parking lot somewhere in Kansas City he pulled up next to a shabby, primer-gray Chevy pick-up with oversized snow tires and recognized it immediately as Bobby's – something the old man had randomly plucked from his wrecking yard no doubt. A few minutes later he was greeting Bobby himself at the door to Bobby's room.

The room was warm, but seedy, with stains on the carpet and the ceiling. The bathroom mirror was cracked and the whole place smelled of piss and cigarettes. In other words, it was just like every motel Dean had ever been in throughout his life. He'd been raised in places like this, spent most of his life in places like this. He'd become spoiled very quickly, he mused, when he reflexively wrinkled his nose at the smell. Cleanliness had always been a luxury when you lived on the road. Clothes were well ripened by the time they got to a laundry mat, and sometimes bodies went days without soap and water too. Now Dean slept on clean linens and showered every day. His clothes were not only clean, but stylish and actually fit – Lisa's doing.

"You're a good looking guy, Dean. You should dress the part," she'd once told him, not long after he moved in.

He'd looked down at himself, puzzled. "What? What's wrong with this?"

"There are holes in those jeans…and that shirt is too big. It smells funny too."

"I thought holes in jeans were fashionable?" Dean lifted the front of his shirt and sniffed. The shirt did have an odd smell. "I think this might be Sammy's," he murmured. "That's not my B.O."

Lisa had rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Burn holes are not fashionable." She pointed at a spot on his thigh. "And is that a blood stain?"

Sheepishly, Dean had admitted it was. Lisa immediately took him shopping.

Nothing escaped Bobby Singer's keen eye. Although Dean wore his old leather coat, the clothes beneath it, and the obviously new boots caught the old Hunter's attention. The wrinkled nose wasn't overlooked either.

"Well hello, your highness. Sorry about the mess. The maid's not come."

"Shut up."

The two of them embraced, Bobby giving Dean a good, hard squeeze before letting him go. "Boy, you look good. Civilian life has been treating you well." He looked Dean up and down. "And feeding you well too."

Dean looked down at himself. He'd gained about ten pounds, which wasn't much, but the hard work and long hours that used to keep him tightly trim and muscular had been replaced by a mostly sedentary lifestyle. He spent his days under the hoods of cars, swapping out parts, changing belts and oil – physical labor, but nothing like running down monsters and digging up graves. The most physically challenging thing he'd had to do lately had been digging the Jeep out of the snow piled up in the driveway.

"Feeding me _right_," he said. "No more greasy spoons and mini mart crap."

"I didn't hear you pull up."

"Yeah, I'm not driving the Impala. She's been living a life of retirement in Lisa's garage. Figured it would be quicker to get here in a 4-wheel drive. Jeep's out front."

As he sat down at a table strewn with papers piled under and around Bobby's laptop, it was Dean's turn to check out his old friend. If Dean had gained weight, Bobby had lost it. Despite his age, Bobby was as lean and tough as a man half his age. He'd trimmed down considerably since Dean had seen him last. He could probably kick a younger man's ass clear across the country and back again.

Bobby noticed this scrutiny too. "I quit drinkin," he said by way of explanation. "And I've been on the road more." Shrugging he added, "Someone needs to teach these young upstart Hunters a thing or two."

Dean grinned. "Yeah, and there's no better teacher."

"Damn straight." Bobby reached across the table and pulled out a printed document. "So while I waited for you, I made some calls and did a little digging around. Seems our two Biloxi demons weren't the only ones got bled dry. There have been several more, all around the country."

"Bobby it isn't Sam!" Dean snapped quickly. "I told you…."

"Hey, whoa, don't get your panties in a wad. I never said it was. The M.O. fits for sure though, and something, or someone, has got the demons on edge – angels too."

"You said you talked to Cas?

"It's been a while ago." Removing his cap, Bobby scratched his head before returning the ever-present hat to its place. "Haven't heard a peep from him recently, and it's a one way connection. When featherpants needs something, he contacts me. When I need something, his phone's off the hook."

"Typical." Dean leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He was exhausted. It was going on thirty-six hours since his head had hit a pillow, and he wasn't used to keeping those hours much anymore. "But I just can't see how it could be Sam."

Bobby didn't reply. He pulled out another sheet of paper. "I also looked into what you'd said about Indiana being clean, too clean. And yeah," the old Hunter admitted. "That's weird, and yeah, now I'm not so sure it's a coincidence."

"I'm guessing you have a theory."

"You ain't gonna like it."

Dean sighed again. "And I'm guessing it involves Sammy."

Leaning forward, Bobby stared at him intently. "Dean, listen. These demons, they're not just edgy, they're scared. Something nasty has been hunting them, something that's been draining their blood. If we suspect it's Sam, you damn well better believe they do too."

"Probably," Dean said reluctantly. "I would."

"And wouldn't it scare the crap out of you knowing the man who brought down _Lucifer himself_ is after your ass?"

"Definitely, but it's not…."

"They don't know that," Bobby interrupted quickly. "Hell, _we_ don't know for sure."

"I know for sure."

Rolling his eyes, Bobby waved him off. "But they certainly don't, and they aren't taking any risks. Do you realize now why Indiana is a supernatural dead zone?" Bobby didn't wait for a reply. "Demons, angels, spooks and monsters of almost every kind are keeping their heads down because right smack dab in the middle of the state sits Sam Winchester's brother!"

Softly, Dean made yet another denial. "Bobby, it's not Sam. I was there…."

"And so was God." Bobby returned, just as softly. "He brought Castiel back. Couldn't He have saved Sam too?"

Dean's jaw clenched. "No," he said adamantly. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because," stabbing a finger at one of Bobby's notes, Dean leaned in across the table. "If this is true, if Sammy is out there killing demons and drinking their blood, then it wasn't God who saved him, because I can't believe God….." His voice broke. He had to pause before he could continue. "God wouldn't give me back a monster."

They stared at each other in silence until Bobby finally conceded. "If he did, or even if he didn't, one thing's for sure. There is a monster out there."

Dean nodded. "And we've got to hunt it down."

* * *

"What did you say your name was again?"

Dean resisted the temptation to smile. The nurse was perky and cute, just the sort that a year ago he would have attempted to woo into bed. But that _was_ a year ago, before he was getting laid on a regular basis, by the same woman every time, a woman whose trust he did not want to betray. Besides, federal agents didn't smile – at least not the ones Dean had encountered.

"Special Agent Plant," he said. They always threw in that "special" thing too. He'd never understood that part. "Robert Plant."

"Like the singer?" she asked.

"Like the singer."

Just like the singer in fact, Dean had been listening to Zeppelin before he'd arrived at St. Genevieve Memorial Hospital. He was there to interview a woman who, by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, witnessed the death of one of the demons on Bobby's list. She wasn't in the hospital due to anything related to the incident. She was in the hospital because she'd stepped out into traffic on her way home from a bar and been hit by a pick-up. Dean referred to this as a WUI accident – walking under the influence.

"She's not the most reliable witness," Bobby explained before sending Dean down to Louisiana. "But she's the only one we got."

"Mrs. Daniels is in this room." The nurse smiled prettily, obviously flirting. "_Special_ Agent."

"Thank you."

"Can I do you….I mean can I do anything else for you?"

_Like go away_? Dean thought. Aloud he said, "I have what I need, thank you."

She left walking backward, still smiling. Dean ignored her, distracted by the fact his drunken witness was named Daniels.

Like the whiskey?

He wondered if her first name was Jacqueline. A quick glance at the cheat sheet Bobby had given him revealed her name was not Jackie, but Rhonda.

"Well, Rhonda, let's see if you can help me," he murmured, and pushed open the door.

Rhonda looked like she'd been run over, which of course she had. One arm was in a cast from wrist to elbow. Both legs were likewise incased in plaster from ankle to hip – and suspended over the bed in traction. She was thirty-four, but looked more like sixty-four, with more grey in her hair than brown and deep lines etched into the skin around her nose and mouth. The first thing she tried to do was bum a cigarette off of Dean, who didn't smoke. He wondered if she wasn't going to try to get him to smuggle in some booze next, but she didn't. Turned out someone else had. She pulled a bottle out from under her pillow and took a drink.

"So what do you want? The cops done been here."

"I'm not here to talk about the accident," Dean said. "I'm here to ask about what happened to you last month." When she looked back at him blankly, he gave her a reminder. "At Bubba Nixon's pool hall."

"Oh! The dead guy."

"Yeah, the dead guy."

Rhonda took a swig of whiskey. "What about him?"

"Can you tell me what happened?"

She shrugged, which seemed to hurt her given the way she winced. "Told the cops that too. I don't know nothin' about that. I was leaving out the back and I saw these two guys fightin' in the alley."

Dean nodded. He'd read the police report. Rhonda had been ducking out on a tab by climbing out the ladies room window, which happened to face the alley. The bar had no back door at ground level.

"Go on."

"They was scuffling back and forth, and the next thing I know the one guy – the guy that ends up dead – is pinned up against the wall like a durn poster. Nothin' holdin' him up either. Just hangin' there. Then, quick as a flash, the other guy is there sucking on his neck like a dang vampire."

"Did you get a good look at him? The vampire guy, not the dead guy."

Dean actually already knew the answer. The wall the demon had been pinned against was the wall with the window for Bubba Nixon's ladies room in it. Rhonda had been hanging halfway out the window when all this had gone down. She would have had the perfect view of what happened.

"Yeah, I did."

"The vampire guy, was he tall?"

"Yeah, real tall. Taller than the dead guy for sure."

"Did he look like this?" Dean pulled a picture out of his inside coat pocket.

It was a picture Bobby had given him, a picture of Sam sitting on the hood of the Impala, bathed in the brilliant white light of a streetlamp. It was a remarkably good picture considering Bobby had originally taken it at night with his cell phone. Sam looked pensive, thoughtful, as he often did. He didn't seem to be focused on anything in particular, but rather lost in thought, and certainly oblivious to Bobby snapping his picture. Dean had noted the dark circles beneath his eyes and the tautness around his mouth. Something had been weighing heavily on his mind, something unpleasant.

But then, for Sam, life had rarely been pleasant.

"Where was this?" he asked when Bobby first showed it to him.

"Detroit," Bobby replied softly.

The picture Dean showed Rhonda was the last photograph ever taken of his brother. It had been Sam's last night on earth. He was gone the next day.

Rhonda took the picture. She squinted at it. "Maybe. Could have been. This kid is too clean cut though. The guy I saw looked like he'd been sleepin' in the woods a while. He had a scruffy beard, and long tangled hair. Filthy dirty too, but…." She nodded. "It could have been him," she repeated. "Or not."

Dean rolled his eyes and took back the picture. "Thank you."

He went back to the Jeep. They had nothing, or maybe they had something, he didn't know. Had it been Sam? If he skipped over the whole "how" part, and assumed it could have been Sam, what had happened to him? Had the demon blood literally turned him into some kind of a monster, more like a werewolf than a vampire, a creature working on pure instinct? That would explain the unkempt appearance. It would also explain why he hadn't come to Dean. Then again, the witness at Roy and Walt's murder scene hadn't mentioned a beard, or any odd behavior from the man she described.

"And she was sober," he murmured.

He glanced down at the phone in his hand. It was his old phone - the one with the old voice messages on it. There was a new one from Bobby. Dean dialed his voicemail account and sighed as he realized it was going to go through all those old messages first. Had it been that long since he'd listened to them that the voicemail system wanted to delete them already?

"_Your call from 555-303-6967….." _

Dean hit save, save, until he got to the last one, the one from Sam with nothing but a muffled expletive.

"_Your call from 555-303-6967 on Wednesday, June 3Oth, 2010 will be deleted…."_

Dean automatically hit save, just as his mind said, "Wait a minute."

He quickly went through all the messages again.

"_Shit."_

There was no doubt. The voice was Sam's.

June 30th, 2010.

Sam had died in May.


	4. Don't Forget Winona

Bobby's reaction to the phone message was to chuckle. "Idjit," he said. "Now you know what he was cussing about. He misdialed." He paused contemplatively. "Or butt dialed."

"Bobby, I'm not laughing." Dean glared at him. "If this," he shook his phone. "Is Sam, then he's alive – or something – and that's not really a good thing right now."

"Did you try calling him back?"

"No…." Dean said sarcastically. "Dammit, of course I did, and I played every hand I have trying to figure out where the hell he is. The phone is disconnected and he's not following his usual patterns. "

"But he is following a pattern."

They were at Bobby's place in South Dakota. Dean had been glad to see the January snow had given way to an unusually warm February thaw but it still didn't make the going much better. Bobby Singer's salvage yard was a swamp from melting snow, cold rain, and all the water running down toward the house from the wrecking yard. If Bobby hadn't built a safe-room in the basement it would be flooded. Of course having a room built of iron and salt in one's basement wasn't necessarily good either. Water, salt and iron didn't mix well. Bobby's underground Titanic was beginning to rust.

His solution was to buy a case of Rust-Off spray paint and go to town. Since he'd purchased the paint cheap as overstock, it came in a case of all different colors. The safe-room was beginning to look like an inner-city tagger's dreamscape.

Dean's thought was that he needed a little Rust-Off himself. The cold, wet weather wasn't helping, and despite Castiel's healing abilities, he hurt all over. Every ache marked where a place where he'd broken a bone, sprained a muscle, or pulled a tendon. Every nagging little pain could be traced back to an old knife or bullet wound. Cas had healed the wounds, and erased the physical scarring, but he couldn't touch those that ran deep beneath the surface. He couldn't _really_ turn back time. Dean _felt_ like a man who had his face shattered and all his ribs busted, because those things had actually happened. He'd just been lucky enough to skip the immediate aftermath and the slow, agonizing recovery.

While Bobby rolled out a map and began marking it, Dean wandered into the kitchen. There was pain reliever in one cupboard, in the same place Bobby had always kept it. Dean shook two out into his palm. There was no beer. He took a diet soda back out into the library where Bobby was waiting.

"At first glance it looks random, doubling back on itself once or twice, but if you look close, you'll see the pattern." He tapped the map. "I've made some calls, pulled info from a dozen different sources. Every place I've marked is where we've found bloodless demon meat-suits in the past eighteen or so months."

Dean leaned over the map. Bobby was right; at first the marks looked random, zig-zagging across the map from North to South with no apparent pattern. As he leaned back, however, he saw the glaring omission that indicated there was method to the killer's madness.

"There's nothing further east than Illinois and nothing further north than Nebraska."

"Ah, give the boy a prize," Bobby said quietly. "And…?"

His brow knitting, Dean looked again, searching for something else, and it didn't take him long to find it. "He's heading west," he murmured. "Along old Route 66, more or less."

"And probably only straying off course to hunt."

Dean turned away, his stomach churning. "Could it be Lucifer?"

Bobby sighed, "It could, but do you really think it is? There have been no signs, Dean. Satan doesn't walk the Earth without leaving some pretty obvious footprints!"

"I don't want to Hunt my brother!" Dean said sharply. He paced back and forth uneasily. The weight in his gut increased, his chest ached. "It can't have come to this. After everything we've been through, after Sammy - he threw himself into the Pit. He volunteered to spend eternity Hell's _basement_, Bobby! Is this how God says 'thank you?'" He stopped, tears burning his eyes. "No. I'm not buying it. I can't…."

"Then don't," Bobby said. "Go home, Dean. Go back to Lisa. Forget I ever called." He started to fold the map. "I shouldn't have called."

"He's my brother," Dean whispered. "I would have never forgiven you."

"You would have never known," Bobby returned. After a long pause he rose. Dean felt a hand on his shoulder. "Monster or not, he's out of the Pit. He's got a chance."

"A chance for what?"

"Peace."

Bobby's expression was full of sorrow, and for the first time since they'd hooked up again, Dean could see the changes ten plus years had made. For the first time, Bobby looked – tired – yet he would still pick himself up and go back out to the front line as soon as Dean left. He'd do what he had to do, at whatever cost.

"I'll do this, Dean. Go home."

Slowly, Dean let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and shook his head. "It's Sammy," he said roughly. "It's my brother."

"Dean…."

"I'll do it."

* * *

Oddly, Dean had never been to Flagstaff before. There were very few places in the continental United States that he hadn't been, and Flagstaff was one of them. He thought he liked it, but hoped he wouldn't be there long.

Just over the Arizona border he had called Lisa. He'd been gone more than a month, and they had spoken only once before during that time. Dean hadn't thought it was safe. The first call had been brief, so was the second.

"I miss you, and Ben," Dean told her. "I'm coming home, Lise. I promise."

"Have you found what you're looking for?"

"Almost."

In an abandoned house in a surprisingly upscale neighborhood, Dean had captured a demon. It had taken him a while to lure one in, because, as he already knew, they were afraid to have anything to do with him. This one, however, had been the exception. This demon had been more than happy to see him. Dean and this demon had a history. It hadn't been too difficult to catch it in a Devil's Trap and tie it to a chair. Dean made sure it was good and bloody first. It had laughed at him for it.

"Just like old times," it sneered. "Huh, Dean?"

"Not really," Dean wiped his knife, Ruby's knife, on the back of a moth-eaten armchair, and then turned the chair around to face his captive before sitting down. "I'm just chumming the water. I don't give a crap about _you_."

Whatever smart-ass comment the demon had been planning on saying, dried up in its mouth. It looked around itself nervously. "Bait? You're using me as bait?"

"I'd say…uhm…yes. You're bait."

Sweat broke out on the demon's forehead. It tugged at the ropes holding it to the chair. "Seriously?"

"You do speak English, right?" Dean asked casually. "El youo, el baito."

"You prick!" The demon squawked. "Don't you think you owe me a little? Huh? After what you did to me in Hell, you _owe_ me!"

Dean hid a shudder. In his mind's eye he could see himself leaning over a bloody figure spread out before him with hooks stretching each limb just shy of the dislocation point. Dean had meticulously made his way down through skin and flesh, muscle and tendon, neatly filleting each layer off the one below it. He peeled a human body just like he would peel an onion. It had taken hours. He'd tuned out the screams after the first twenty minutes.

When he'd first taken up the knife he tried to justify it. These souls he tortured, they were in Hell for a reason. They deserved it. He hadn't. Why shouldn't he take it out on them? It was only fair. He'd paid his dues and then some. It was their turn.

That mentality hadn't lasted. Not after a while, not after hearing how they begged and pleaded and swore their repentance if only he would stop hurting them. For the first time in his life Dean had felt like he was in control. He wasn't riding on his father's coattails. He wasn't shadowing his little brother. He wasn't letting their circumstances dictate how he led _his_ life. Dean was calling the shots. It was a power trip, an addiction, and as time passed he wanted more and more, so he took more, and more.

Dean's intolerance of Sam's demon blood addiction had been born of personal experience. Sam insisted that Dean didn't understand, but Dean did understand. He understood far too well what it was like to wield great power, and not be able to put it down – even when it hurt people.

"Collateral damage," Dean murmured. To the demon he said, "If you don't shut up, I'll do it to you again."

"Bastard!" The demon spit at him, but of course got nowhere close to hitting him. The spittle hissed and sizzled on one of the lines Dean had carved into the wooden floor. It struggled against its bonds, but then, suddenly, It stopped, cocking its head at Dean quizzically. "It is him, isn't it? It's your little Sammy you're trying to bring in." It gave him a smirk. "Only, it's not Sammy anymore. It's a blood-sucking monster." With black eyes gleaming, the demon leaned forward as far as it could against the ropes. "You're gonna kill him."

Dean reined himself back, projecting a forced nonchalance he certainly didn't feel. "Not until after he kills you."

"You think that scares me now?" the demon asked. "This will be worth it. Knowing you're going to have to stick that knife in baby brother? There's no torture in the world that could hurt you more, Dean." It raised its head and started shouting. "So come and get me! Yum, yum, Sammy! Here's a real nice snack."

"Shut up," Dean half rose from the chair.

"Huh-uh, Deano. Be careful. You step over that line and I'm outta here."

The two of them glared at each other. Dean returned to his seat, forcing himself to calm down.

"What're you going to do if he doesn't show?" the demon asked.

Dean quietly pulled a whetstone out of his back pocket, and began sharpening Ruby's knife.

The demon shut up.


	5. Back in Black

It was three in the morning and Dean was ready to stick the demon and go home. It had decided to pass the time by singing to itself, and what it chose to sing was show tunes. Dean's classic rock morals conflicted with this evil cacophony of caterwauling but no amount of threats could get the bastard to either shut up or change the channel. Kicking himself in the ass for not gagging the demon when he had the chance, Dean got up to peer out a window.

Outside the house there was nothing but darkness. Only one house in this suburban oasis of bankruptcy was occupied, the others had been either lost when the developer went under, or foreclosed on when the people who had purchased one discovered exactly what the term ARM meant in real estate vernacular. Dean suspect there were a few more squatters hanging around, but they were also keeping their heads down.

"I'm going to check out back," he said. "You sit tight there Andrew Lloyd. I'll be right back."

"You know, I'm not stupid." The demon stopped singing. "These older demons, the ones tiptoeing around your brother, they think he's some sort of god. I think they're full of crap. I could have taken you out and been gone by the time bro showed up. The others – they think he can see what they're thinking. They leave you alone."

"And I care, why?"

"If I get away, you better start watching your back."

Dean smiled at him. "But you aren't getting away," he said, and moved off toward the back of the house.

It was a good sized house, this McMansion, with a lot of nice features. It reminded him of Lisa's old house in Cicero though, and its lack of character. Everything seemed cold, and sterile, save for the odd piece of natty furniture and places where the previous owners took their financial angst out on the house itself. In the formal dining room someone had punched holes in the drywall. In the kitchen several cabinet doors hung awry.

Oddly, it made him homesick, he who had never had a home before. After Mary Winchester died and John had taken the boys on the road, Dean had never spent more than a month or two in one place. He'd been with Lisa over a year, in one place, in one house. He had neighbors, friends, and a gym membership. He had a _library_ card for god's sake.

While he'd been sitting there listening to the demon's warbling song, Dean had been thinking about all the projects he needed to do back at the house. The sink was leaking in the downstairs powder room. Lisa's mother had bought them a ceiling fan for Christmas – Dean needed to install it before warm weather arrived. Once spring came there was yard work to do, not to mention the start of baseball season. Carl Tucker had asked Dean if he wanted to assistant coach this year. Carl's son Stevie and Ben were on the same team. Ben's eyes had lit up at the very idea, and in his excitement he'd accidentally called Dean, Dad.

Dad.

With a sigh, Dean leaned his head against the back door. "I don't want to be here, Sammy," he whispered. "You were right."

He reached out a hand toward the blind so he could move it aside and look out into the dark expanse of the back yard. A park butted up to the back of the property, a park with a lot of wooded areas. It wouldn't have taken much effort to approach the house from that direction without being seen. If anyone was hiding out there in the dark, it was probably hiding in the woods.

"DEAN!"

Dean's hand jerked back. He turned quickly and raced back to the living room. He heard his name called again, this time in a shrieking, terrified voice which ended in a strange, liquid sounding gurgle. The only light they had was coming from a camping lantern Dean had set up on the hearth, and it cast just a small circle of dim, yellow light. As he rushed into the room he could see only a tall silhouette hunched over the demon. From the way the demon's head was cocked back, Dean could tell its neck was broken. It stared at him through eyes that had gone dark, but not in a literal, demonic sense. The light had gone out in the human's eyes. Both the demon and its host were dead.

The shadowy figure leaning over the body had its face buried in the demon's throat. Grisly sucking sounds could be heard as it fed. A single drop of blood ran down the demon's face from chin to eyebrow, and then fell to the floor like a crimson teardrop. This seemed to break Dean's paralysis. He raised his gun and cocked it.

Just that small sound alerted the killer to Dean's presence. It jerked away from its meal, looking back at Dean through a fall of long, thickly matted hair.

And like a cat, it hissed at him, bearing bloody teeth in a snarl. Its face was covered in blood, both old and new, which almost obscured the patchy beard and mustache. Ragged, dirty clothing – torn jeans and a threadbare T-shirt covered its body. Old, dried bloodstains caked the front of the shirt. It stunk of rotting meat. Dean could smell it from across the room.

Snarling, it moved a step toward Dean. Its tall, muscular build was familiar, and beneath the dirt and the matted hair, so was its face.

"Sammy," Dean whispered. Heartbroken, he struggled to keep tears at bay "Sammy, no…."

Harsh, raspy breathing was the only reply. One wary eye rolled toward Dean, and Sam backed away to reclaim his meal. Like an animal, he was seeing Dean only as competition and a possible threat. If there was anything like a sane human being left inside him, it was buried deep.

"Sam, don't," Dean pleaded. "You fought off Lucifer. You can fight off this. Come on. Please." Slowly, Dean lowered his weapon. He held out one hand toward his brother. "It's me, Sammy. Hey, I know I've gotten a little flabby, but don't you recognize me?"

He had no idea what he was doing. Perhaps he thought if he got close enough he could knock Sam unconscious, drag him off somewhere, detox him again, but really, he wasn't thinking much at all. His mind was in a tailspin. His heart was beating fast, almost too fast. Dean felt light headed, and sick to his stomach. One thing he did know was that if Sam turned on him, there would be no question at all about what he'd do. He'd spent over a year out of the field, but Hunting was like riding a bicycle. Just barely more than a month and Dean's old instincts had kicked in, and into overdrive. If Sam attacked him, Dean would shoot before he even realized what he was doing.

Sam cocked his head, listening, but in his eyes, there was still no comprehension. Dean drew closer. He stepped inside the Devil's Trap. The scent of blood, sulfur, and rotting meat grew stronger, almost overwhelming.

"Sam," Dean gathered himself for the quick lunge that would bring him within striking range. "It's okay. I'm here now. You're gonna be oh…."

He never finished the sentence. Something in his stance, his body language, or his voice, tipped Sam off to his intentions. Dean let out an involuntary gasp when hazel eyes turned black on black, and lips curled back in a snarl of rage. Sam thrust out both hands with a roar of anger. He made no physical contact with Dean, but Dean was lifted up off his feet and shoved back ward across the room as if he'd been hit by a truck. Drywall cracked and crumbled beneath the impact of his body against the wall. He fell to the floor, momentarily stunned.

Vision cleared to reveal his gun nearby. He reached out a hand, and missed grabbing it by mere inches when a booted foot drove hard into his gut. Reflexively Dean's body attempted to curl up around the hurt, but a knee in his chest prevented it. Long, ragged nails scraped against his scalp, and claw-like fingers grabbed a handful of his hair and began to pound his head into the floor. Almost immediately his eyesight blurred. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe for the weight pressing down into his chest. Sam grunted with the effort he was expending. Dean heard this, and he heard Sam's deep, raspy breathing, and just as the sound was beginning to fade, he heard another voice quite clearly.

"Hey!"

The pounding stopped. The weight abruptly left Dean's chest, allowing him to suck in a big gulp of air. A gun went off with a loud bang. There was a gasp, and a sharp cry of pain, and Dean was let go. He felt a rush of air as his attacker fled.

Dean lay there gasping like a fish, only half conscious, until he realized Sam could come back and finish him. Then he realized someone _else_ was out there. He reached out for his gun, and held it in a weak and trembling hand as he painstakingly hauled himself back up onto his feet. Blinking blood and sweat out of his eyes, he saw the figure of a man standing in the front door holding a shotgun, apparently the man who had just saved his life, but Dean wasn't taking any chances. He raised his own weapon, prepared to defend himself. The man stepped over the threshold and into the room.

"Dean?"

Dean stared, shocked, confused, and wondering if maybe he wasn't hallucinating. He had, after all, been hit in the head pretty damn hard. Just in case, he tightened his grip on his gun.

It was Sam – not the monster who had just been beating the snot out of him, but the normal Sam, complete with natty beige jacket and a blue striped button-down shirt much too short for his ginormously long torso. In one hand he held a shotgun, still smoking from the shot he'd fired. In the other hand he held a flashlight, which he pointed at Dean. His expression was almost as shocked as Dean's.

Almost.

Before Dean could utter a word, Sam lowered the shotgun and blurted, "What in the hell are you doing here?"

Dean nearly shot him, just out of principle. "What am I…? Shouldn't I be asking _you_ that?" he demanded, putting the gun down. He gestured with it in the general direction in which the other Sam went. "And what the hell was that?"

"That," Sam said, grimacing at the sight of the mangled demon. "Was me."

If he'd suddenly grown two heads and started reciting the Gettysburg Address, backward, in French, he couldn't have blown Dean's mind more than he did with those three words. Of course, Dean's mind was pretty much blown already at this point.

"Sammy," he said hoarsely, not sure whether he should laugh, cry, or turn around and go home. "You've got some 'splainin' to do."


	6. All For One

Note:

Thanks to Lisa and Zara for pointing out my little time-line snafu. This is set only 1 year into the future, not 10. Sorry for the confusion! It's fixed now.

-T

* * *

Sam had set up camp in a house two doors down. It sat further away from the road and thus the prying eyes of passersby. Here the kitchen lights were on, and the appliances worked. Dean sat on a barstool holding a plastic bag full of ice to the back of his head. Sam handed him a beer, which Dean accepted gratefully, then shed his jacket. There was blood on his shirt which he lifted to reveal a deep gouge in his side just across his ribs. As he went to work cleaning it up, Dean looked him over.

This was the Sam Dean knew, the Sam who he'd last seen taking a nose dive into oblivion. He hadn't changed at all. He looked exactly the same as he had the day he supposedly died, exactly like the Sam in Bobby's photograph. Dean once again found himself wondering whether he was dreaming, or if Hulk-Sam had hit him so hard he was seeing things. Yet, as wary as he was regarding this miraculous appearance by his supposedly dead brother, a small voice at the back of his head was crowing with excitement.

_Sammy's alive. He's alive!_

"Out of the starting gate, how do I know you're you?" Dean demanded.

"You don't," Sam said quietly. He flipped open a first aid kit. "For all you know I could be a shapeshifter."

"Or Lucifer."

"Or Lucifer," Sam agreed. He gingerly placed a sterile pad over his wound and taped it up. "Rib's cracked," he murmured, half to himself, half to Dean. "Dammit."

"And that's the short list." Dean pulled his own bag of supplies across the counter. "So what do you want first, the holy water or the silver knife?"

"Holy water."

A shot glass was unavailable. Sam drank the holy water from a mug that said "MOM" before making a short cut across one arm with Dean's silver knife. He gave Dean a look as if say, _"Well?"_

So he wasn't a demon or a shapeshifter.

"Ghoul? How do you test for that?" Dean frowned. "That other Sam would make a better ghoul."

"You've given up on Lucifer?" Sam procured his own beer and leaned against the counter, smiling slightly. "Wouldn't he be the primary suspect?"

"Bobby said the door is still locked, and sealed. Castiel's sealed it. There's been no signs, no demonic omens…."

"And he's right. Lucifer is still locked up in the Ninth Circle."

"Where you should be – Sam, I saw you go through the portal! If you're you, really you, how the hell did you get out?"

"Hell had nothing to do with it," Sam drawled softly. "I picked up a last minute insurance policy."

Dean was flummoxed. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Michael."

"Michael?"

"Michael." Sam repeated. "Who wasn't supposed to take the fall. God yanked him out at the last minute. I rode out with him, and Adam. Adam is back in Heaven with his Mom and his girl. I'm not sure what God did with Michael, but I don't think he sent him to Disney."

"And you're here."

"Yep."

"And the zombie-Sam I saw munching on that demon back there?"

"Lucifer's last Hail Mary," Sam said promptly. He pushed himself off the counter and went to the fridge where he got another beer for Dean. "God figured he owed me one…."

"He figured right," Dean interrupted fiercely.

Sam handed him the beer. "Do you want to hear this or not?"

Dean waved for him to continue, still trying to get his aching head around what he'd seen, and what he'd been told already. "Yeah, yeah, keep going."

"God put me back together, brought me back, but he left out one little piece of the puzzle. He left what Azazel tainted in the trap – or planned to anyway. Lucifer saw an opportunity to get himself an ally on the other side, and he threw it out just before the door closed. "

"All right, I'm kinda following you."

"Really?"

"Okay, mostly not," Dean admitted. "You're telling me that – thing – is you?"

"It's….I guess you'd call it a clone, but a really crappy copy. The only thing Lucifer had to work with was what God left out. That _thing_, is Azazel's blood addicted psychic Sam. It's pissed, it's hungry, and it's dangerous."

"It has poor personal hygiene."

Sam smiled wryly. "It runs on pure instinct. Bathing is not high on its priority list." He paused as if reluctant to go on. "It took me a long time to admit I had a problem, that the monster inside me was real. What happened with Ruby – with Lucifer – that was a big wake-up call, but this…?" He shook his head slowly. "Really brings it home. It isn't human, Dean. It's more demon than anything else, but not the kind we're used to dealing with. It can't be exorcised. It isn't affected by a Devil's Trap or Holy Water."

Dean nodded and raised his beer for a long pull. "Okay, that sucks, especially since it can fling people around like they do."

"And it's getting stronger. The more demon blood it drinks, the stronger it gets. It's also learning – how to find demons, how to catch and kill them, and how to cover its tracks when it's done. It also isn't as afraid of humans as it was at first. It will kill anyone that gets in its way."

"So I noticed," Dean said, gesturing with his ice pack. "But guns work. You winged it for sure back there."

"Ah….yeah, about that." Sam leaned back against the counter and took a drink himself. "You're right. Conventional weapons can hurt it, even kill it – knives, guns, all that."

Narrowing his eyes, Dean looked at him carefully and began to feel the slow burn of an indescribable emotion growing in the pit of his stomach. The closest he could get to a definition would be joy, and most definitely a strong sense of relief. Sam was alive, and whole – well maybe not entirely – but definitely better. There was, however, something in his tone that put Dean on alert and dampened his spirits. _A catch_, he thought_, there's always a catch._

"I'm hearing a 'but' at the end of that sentence," he said.

"You know the story about the Corsican brothers?"

Dean drew a blank. "Sounds familiar, but no, refresh my memory."

Sam chuckled. "Right. It's a story by Dumas, the same guy that wrote…."

"_The Three Musketeers!"_

"Yeah, you would know that one. "

"Great movie." Dean reflected. "Great date movie."

"Raquel Welch."

"Oh, yeah."

"Okay, when you've finished your sex with Raquel Welch daydream, Dean, let me know because I wasn't finished."

"Sorry. Right. Corsican brothers." Dean waved a hand for his brother to continue. "What about them?"

"They had a unique – bond. What happened to one, also happened to the other."

Dean snorted. "Sounds like us."

Sam fell quiet, and stayed quiet until Dean noticed the silence and looked up at him.

"Not anymore," Sam said softly. "We made the break, Dean. You've got your life, I've got mine. It's one of the reasons why I never came to you and told you…."

"That you were alive? That you weren't being torn to pieces down in the Pit?" Dean felt the mix of emotions churning around inside, give way to a quick flash of anger. He took a deep breath, but didn't spare any punches. "Do you know how much agony you could have spared me with just a damn text message?"

"Yeah, I do, because I've been there. I was there for four months, and you _were_ being tortured. You _were_ in Hell. If I'd shown up on Lisa's doorstep you would have had no reason to stay. You would have hooked up with me again and we'd be right back in it."

Dean laughed bitterly. "Like now?" He spread his arms. "Here I am, Sammy. I'm right back in it."

"And why is that, Dean? It's because of me." Sam leaned over the counter. "Ask yourself – when this is all over, who are you going to choose, me, or your family?"

"You are my family!"

Sam held his gaze. "Am I?" he asked. "Really? Family is more than blood, Dean. Isn't that what Bobby always says? Think about it? Where do you want to be for the rest of your life, with me in some skeevy motel in the middle of nowhere, hunting down nightmares? Or in your own backyard tossing a ball around with your kid?" His expression softened. "I've seen you with Ben, Dean. I already know the answer."

Dean's eyes burned. Damn him. Sam could always get him to squeeze out the tears. "Sammy…."

Shaking his head, Sam backed up with a sigh, returning to the place beside the fridge where he'd been leaning. "It doesn't matter," he said quietly, taking a long pull from his bottle. "To end this job, we've got to kill Bad Sammy. " He put a hand over his ribs, over the place where he'd been hurt. "And that will be that."

"It's a bullet wound." Dean murmured, and he realized then that in the confrontation with "Bad Sammy" only he and Sam had been carrying guns. Only Sam had gotten off a shot. That shot, Dean was certain, hit the clone. So how had Sam himself picked up a fresh bullet wound?

Suddenly the reference to the Corsican brothers made sense. He understood exactly what Sam had been trying to tell him.

"You've been trailing it for a year," Dean said gruffly. "And you haven't killed it. You could have killed it months ago. You could have done it tonight."

Sam put down his empty beer bottle and met Dean's eye. "I could still kill it tonight," he said quietly, and with thumb and forefinger, gestured shooting himself in the head.

"And there's the catch," Dean whispered.

* * *

Dean insisted on going to Bobby, Sam acquiesced reluctantly. "I haven't found a solution yet," he said. "I know you don't want to hear it, Dean, but I don't think there's a way around it."

"You don't have Bobby's resources." Dean had squeezed the steering-wheel tightly. "I'm not getting into another no-win situation, Sam. We're going to figure this one out."

"We figured the last one out."

"You _died_, Sam!"

"Yeah, but we stopped the Apocalypse. How is that not winning? We did what we had to do and got the job done."

"And that's not winning. That's settling. Winning is everybody lives, everybody goes home, everybody feels good. Winning is happily ever after."

Dean could feel Sam looking at him, but didn't look. He didn't want to be witness to the patronizing expression he knew his brother was wearing.

"You've been to Heaven," Sam said. "And you still believe in happily ever after?"

After a long pause, Dean said, "I have to, Sammy."

Much to Dean's relief, Sam let the subject drop. He spent the rest of the long drive concentrating on keeping the Jeep on the road while a weary Sam dozed. The weather changed radically from Arizona to South Dakota. They arrived at Bobby's in a downpour of sleet and freezing rain, dashing for the front porch to avoid being soaked through to the skin. Bobby opened the door for them. Dean sneezed, Sam shook his damp hair back from his face, and smiled ruefully at Bobby.

"Hey, Bobby. I'm back.

Bobby pulled him into a rough embrace, but didn't seem particularly surprised to see him alive and in the flesh. When Dean casually mentioned this fact, Bobby just snorted. "I'd be more surprised if one of you died and _stayed_ dead." He led them into the kitchen where he had hot coffee waiting. "Besides, I just hacked into the sheriff's office's database out in Lawrence. Seems they picked up a print at that motel where Roy and Walt bit it. They're trying to figure out how the fingerprint of a guy the FBI says died years ago got there – in the victims' blood no less."

Dean glanced over at Sam. "That's one I don't get. Why did it kill Roy and Walt?"

Sam's expression hardened. "It didn't," he said coldly. "I did."

"Really?"

"You would have."

"Yeah, maybe, but I'm not all chummy with God. Doesn't he have a rule about killing?"

Sam scowled. "I'm not all chummy with God, Dean."

"He pulled you out of the Pit."

"He pulled his little pet Michael out of the Pit. I just came along for the ride. If he'd left the damn door closed we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now."

Dean opened his mouth to respond to this, but was interrupted by Bobby clearing his throat.

"Can we take a rain-check on this discussion? Whether or not the Disney twins deserved to be blown away is irrelevant at this point." He moved off into the library and pulled several books off a shelf, dividing them up between the three of them. "There's a lot of lore about dopplegangers and evil twins, but to the best of my knowledge this is a pretty unique situation. Still, some of this could be helpful." Piling one last book into Dean's hands, he gave them both a hard stare. "So get to work."

"Ah, research, my favorite." Dean grimaced.

Bobby ignored him. "Sam. What about this thing? Should you two have let it go?"

"It's part of me, Bobby. I can find it at any time, anywhere. Right now it's off licking its wounds, but it'll show up again soon enough needing more blood. It didn't get enough from that demon in Flagstaff. It'll kill again in a few days, I can promise you that."

"So you're linked to it psychically as well as physically."

"I can't read its mind or anything, but I know what it's feeling – if it's hungry, or cold, or in pain. I can feel that, and like I said, I can find it on a map."

"What's it feeling now?" Dean asked.

Sam cocked his head slightly. "Pain, and fear. It's on the move, but until it actually stops, I can't pinpoint it exactly."

"We think its heading West, along old Route 66. Why would it do that?"

"It is?" Sam frowned. "It's heading for California."

"Why?" Dean repeated.

"When I left for college, I hitched a ride with a couple of photographers heading down Route 66. They were working on a book. They got me all the way to the coast."

"It has your memories." Bobby suggested.

"Only on a real primal level," Sam said. "Like I said, it's running on instinct. It's not really thinking, but reacting. If it's heading for California, it probably doesn't realize it, and if it does, it has no idea why." Taking a seat on the ragged sofa, Sam pulled a book from his pile. "It knows I've been tagging it. We need to figure out how to unhook it from me so we can kill it." He looked up at Bobby and Dean with an earnest, fearful expression. "Otherwise, I'll end up having to take it back to the Pit myself, just like I did Lucifer."

Dean sat down beside him and took up a book himself. "Well let's get on with this then."


	7. Cross the Line

Sometime just before dawn, the rain stopped. Dean raised his head from his arms, waking from a dream he immediately could not recall, into a world of dim light and an eerie silence. It was the sudden cessation of the sound of sleet against the windows that had woken him. There were no other sounds to be heard.

He sat at Bobby's desk, books and old papers strewn all around him. To his left Bobby lay slumped in a chair, to his right Sam sprawled on the sofa. It had been a long time, but they'd all been here before, digging through old dusty books, searching for solutions where they would ultimately find none. This was no exception. They had found nothing to explain, nor resolve, Sam's current dilemma. Lucifer had apparently pulled something new out of his box of tricks. For all the lore there was out there about dopplegangers and the like, nothing could be substantiated in _Hunter_ lore. How to fix the problem remained an enigma.

"Dammit," Dean murmured.

His back ached. Rising from his chair, he moved silently across the room, snagging his coat from the newel post at the stairs as he passed. He needed to get some air. The room felt stuffy and warm, and he felt oppressed by the weight of what was turning out to be yet another failure. What kind of sick game was God playing with them this time?

Outside the air was chill, and the rain/sleet had begun to freeze, coating everything with a thin layer of sparkling frost. Standing on the back porch, looking out into the wrecking yard, Dean pulled his coat more tightly around his body and tucked his hands into his pockets. _Wuss_, he thought. He'd gotten soft in more ways than one.

As he stood in the crisp night air, watching the moonlight strike sparks off icicles dangling from rusty bumpers and crooked mirrors, Dean felt the return of a longing that was until recently quite alien to him. His mind was not on the case. His mind was on _home_. A warm hearth and warm hearts waited for him back in Indiana. He thought about the bird feeder he'd hung outside Lisa's kitchen window the winter before, wondering if she'd remembered to fill it. He thought about Ben, and how they still needed to finish the Star Wars trilogy. Had they watched the rest without him?

Dean now understood the ache of homesickness. He wanted to sleep in his own bed, and wake up with nothing more on his mind than making sure Ben got to school on time, and whether or not Lisa would let him fool around with her before she went to work. He missed Saturday morning cartoons and Monday night football, grocery lists and paying bills. He missed mundane. He missed _normal_.

Like a petulant child, he didn't want to play this game anymore. He just wanted to go home.

_And let Sammy die alone? No. That isn't going to happen._

With a sigh, Dean turned to go back into the house, but as he did so he caught sight of something moving in the shadows between two rows of cars. Swiftly he pulled his gun from his pocket and hurried down the steps. He sought cover behind the Jeep. Whatever was in the yard wasn't making any attempt to escape, as Dean could see it crouched down on the ground beside a junked pick-up, unmoving. He made it for human, or at least human shaped. It had made him too. He could tell it was looking right at him.

Moving around the front of the Jeep, Dean slowly approached the intruder, keeping his gun leveled at a place right between its eyes. The closer he got the more he could see, picking out certain features –build, gender, hair and clothing. Closer still and he could hear it breathing, and smell its peculiar stink. It was the clone, the doppleganger, "Bad Sammy" sitting in the mud at his feet.

He expected it to attack him like it had in Flagstaff, but it didn't. Instead it looked up at him with a pleading expression. Tears had made pale streaks through the dried blood and grime caking its face. It shivered with cold, its arms wrapped around its body in a pitiful attempt to keep itself warm, and Dean could see by the way it held itself that it was in pain. Beneath the filthy shirt he had no doubt it had a wound identical to Sam's.

The last thing Dean expected was to hear it speak, but it did. In a hoarse, croaking voice it said his name quite clearly, along with something else that left Dean himself momentarily speechless.

"Dean," it said. "Help me."

"Why should I?" Dean demanded. "I usually don't do favors for people who try to bash my head in."

"I didn't…didn't know. I'm sick...something...something's happened."

"Yeah, Lucifer happened."

Bad-Sam's brow creased. One shaking hand rose to his head. "No. He's gone. I don't know…how. I don't know…I just...I need help. This craving…when it comes I…I don't remember. I've killed. I know." As he spoke, he slowly rose to stand unsteadily. "There's something after me."

"You?" Dean suggested. He held the gun steady, prepared to fire if it, he, whatever, got too close, but mindful of the fact if this Sam was damaged, the other would be as well. "Do you even know who - or should I say _what_ - you are?"

"Sam…." This Sam replied, his voice barely audible. "Something's wrong..." His eyes moved back and forth, as if he were having a hard time focusing. He swayed on his feet. "It's the blood. I can't think…." Tears began to run down his face. "Dean. You have to lock me up."

Dean nodded. "Don't worry about that. I'm definitely going to lock you up." He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder. "Sam! Bobby!"

From inside the house Dean heard someone call his name. He heard the door open, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Sam came around the corner first, holding a shotgun poised and ready to fire, followed by Bobby carrying an iron crowbar. They slowed down as they approached. Bobby appeared stunned. Sam looked angry.

"It followed us?" he said tersely. "How?"

"Dunno," Dean replied. "But he's here."

The subject of this conversation looked up, finally seeming to find focus, and finding focus on his clean-cut lookalike. An expression nothing short of terrified appeared upon his face. "You," he whispered. Raising his hands he grabbed double fistfuls of his hair. "You…." His eyes widened further. "No. NO!"

"Shut up!" Sam elbowed past Dean, and grabbed his twin by the arm, digging his fingers in tight. "Bobby, help me."

"Don't touch me!" Struggling fiercely, the doppleganger threw a fist up at Sam in a desperate attempt to escape. Sam dodged it easily and tightened his grip still further.

Bobby jumped in to help, grabbing the other flailing arm and twisting it up behind the creature's back. "I thought you said it wasn't human!" he barked at Sam. "It's actin' human!"

Sam's expression was grim. "It's learning," he shot back. "It can pick stuff up from me - thoughts, memories – don't let it fool you."

As if on cue, their captive abruptly changed. Dean saw it first, catching a glimpse of his eyes in the glow of the porch-light and seeing them go dark as pitch. The tear streaked face twisted into the snarling countenance he'd faced down in Flagstaff. The pretense of being weak and cold disappeared, and he began gaining an advantage on the men holding him down. He knocked Bobby to the ground. Finding one arm free he lunged at Sam, fingers curled into claws, lips drawn back to bear bloodstained teeth.

Dean rushed in to intercept. Without thinking he grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked Bad Sammy's head back. With one arm locked around the creature's throat, he began to choke off its air. It struck blindly at him. It bloodied his nose, but Dean hung on until gradually its struggles began to cease, and he felt its knees began to buckle. Both he and Sam let it go, and it fell into the mud where it lay still.

Sam looked pale and breathless. Dean looked up at him fearfully, realizing his actions would have affected this Sam too.

"You okay?"

Nodding, Sam swallowed heavily. "Barely," His smile was weak. "More stamina I guess." He jerked a head at the body lying at his feet. "We'd better get it locked up before it wakes up."

"Yeah," Dean murmured. "We'd better." He held out a hand to Bobby, who was muddy, but otherwise okay. "I hope the panic room isn't too rusty to hold him."

Bobby grimaced. "It'll hold him," he said. "But we need to figure out how to get you two unhooked, Sam, and soon."

"No arguments here. I carried a monster around inside me long enough. I'm not real thrilled about having the real life version hanging around."

Dean helped him pick said monster up off the ground. "You and me both," he replied, making a face at the smell coming up off their captive. He shot a glance at Bobby. "Let's make damn sure we keep the one that bathes."

* * *

The first twenty-four hours were quiet. For the majority of that time their captive slept – fitfully – but he slept. They watched him in shifts, although Dean wondered why they bothered after establishing he was securely contained. The room where he and Bobby had detoxed Sam before was still rock solid, despite the discoloration caused by rust. What they had now agreed to call Sam2, could not escape, and there was nothing inside with which he could injure himself. Bobby and Dean provided him soap, water and a clean t-shirt despite Sam's insistence that the creature was little more than an animal, a mimic and wouldn't care about such comforts.

During Dean's shift he woke, and Dean, dozing in a chair by the door, heard the sound of someone testing the latch from the inside. He stood up just in case, but the door was securely locked and Sam2 eventually moved away from it with a sigh. To Dean it almost sounded like a sigh of relief.

Peering in through the window slot, Dean watched him discover the water, and the clean shirt. He washed as much blood from his hands and face as best he could, turning the water an alarming shade of reddish-pink. With a grimace he pulled off the filthy shirt he wore. Dean confirmed the presence of a wound identical to Sam's. It and the anti-possession tattoo stood out in stark relief against the paleness of his skin. As he pulled the clean t-shirt back on, he shivered. It was cold, in both the basement and the panic room. Bobby had built only the most basic ventilation system into his structure. A cold draft came in from above. Sam2 sat down on the cot and pulled a blanket around his shoulders to ward off the chill.

As he looked up, he noticed Dean watching him. With what sounded almost like a moan, he turned his head away. His voice was rough and ragged. "Why don't you just kill me?"

"Sorry, no can do – at least not yet. You remember anything else? Like what Lucifer may have whispered in your ear before he tossed you out?"

Sam2 put his head in one hand, obviously confused – or acting confused. Truth be told, Dean wasn't sure what to think. The fact that this version of Sam, this creature, was more sentient than they'd thought he'd be, bothered him. Could Lucifer have ridden one, or both of these "Sams" out of prison? Hitching a ride like a tick on a hound?

Inside the panic room, Sam2 mumbled something Dean didn't catch. "What?"

"I remember," Sam2 repeated wearily. "I remember despair."

"Sam said it wasn't even twelve hours." Dean replied. "But that was here. In Hell it could have been days."

Sam2 shook his head. "Years," he said hoarsely.

Dean closed his eyes momentarily. During his own stint in Hell he heard talk about Lucifer's exile and imprisonment. Some called his prison Hell's Basement, others the Ninth Circle. If Hell had a Hell, that place would be it. Dean had known this before Sam made the decision to say "yes" in a mad attempt to beat the devil. He'd fought his damnedest to keep that from happening, but in the end, he'd failed.

"Despair," Sam2 repeated. "It won't end."

"No," Dean said reflectively, thinking back to the last year and a few odd months. Lisa and Ben made him happy, he'd come to enjoy his life, but beneath it all was a bleakness he didn't think he would ever be free of for as long as he lived. It was borne of loss, and tempered by hardship, set in stone by pain and torture. "It never does."

Pseudo-Sam moaned slightly. He wrapped the blanket more tightly around himself, shuddering. His eyes tracked off to the right, away from the door and Dean. "It's coming," he said. "It's coming."

"What's coming?"

"Oh, God! Dean. Help me!" Rocking back and forth, Sam2 began moaning even louder. "Make it stop!" He grasped his head in his hands. "Make it stop!"

Just as it had in the wrecking yard, the odd, berserker rage suddenly swept over him. He lurched from the cot, and far quicker than Dean had imagined he could, he was at the door trying to claw his way through the thick, plated iron. His words were incoherent, if they were words at all. Behind him, any object not nailed down started flinging itself around the room and an unnatural maelstrom of wind battered the walls.

Dean shut the small window with a bang. From within he heard all-too-familiar screams of pain and frustration. They'd been here twice before. Sam's first detox session had been an intervention, the second, and worst, had happened when Sam voluntarily put himself in lockdown. The second time he'd broken down under duress, tormented by Famine into succumbing to his addiction against his will. The blood he'd consumed was far greater than he had ever taken in with Ruby, and the agony of coming clean had been unspeakable. He'd screamed within the walls of the panic room for days, emerging wrung out, exhausted, and several pounds lighter. Dean hadn't been in much better shape.

"It won't work you know, not this time."

Startled, Dean turned around to find Sam standing nearby. It was time for them to switch shifts.

"What won't work?" he asked.

Sam moved over to the door and peered inside. He watched dispassionately before turning away with a grimace. An inhuman sounding howl followed the slamming of the portal. "You can't detox that, Dean. What's in there _is_ the toxin." The howl turned into a scream. "Was it like this, when I was in there?"

"It was bad," Dean admitted. "But not like this, Sammy." The screaming stopped abruptly. From behind the door Dean could hear breathless sobbing. "This is bad." He cleared his throat before continuing. "What will happen?"

"It will starve to death," Sam said. "And when it dies, so will I." He held out an arm and pushed up his sleeve. "Iron walls." All up and down Sam's arm were bleeding scrapes, and bruises darkening to a hideous purple-black right before their eyes. "If we don't give it what it needs."

"Demon blood."

"Oh, it's gotten worse than that now, Dean, and thank God that…" Sam pointed toward the door. "Isn't me anymore. It isn't just craving the blood, but the kill itself."

"We have to feed it a live demon?"

Sam looked grim. "Yes."

Dean moaned softly to himself, remembering his own days in Hell once again, when it was no longer the basic act of torturing souls that brought him satisfaction, but how much pain he could inflict. It was a subtle shift in one's addiction that often went unnoticed, and most of the time, once that line was crossed, there was no turning back.


	8. The Messenger

Bobby came up from his research long enough to say, "I don't like this, Dean."

Dean didn't like it either. For the hundredth time he peered out the window from his seat on Bobby's sofa, looking for any sign of Sam. He'd gone out trolling for demons. If Dean hadn't been feeling so ragged out he would have gone with him, and maybe should have anyway, but when Sam pulled the "you'd only slow me down" card, Dean had to admit defeat. He wasn't used to burning the midnight oil anymore, and after a couple of months of forcing it, he was exhausted. Picking right up where he'd left off a year ago - that, he had learned, just didn't work.

"We don't have a choice, Bobby. Not unless you find a way to exorcise that thing, or kill it without stopping Sam cold."

"And putting them back together?" Bobby raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"You consider that an option? If this – physical manifestation – of Sam's addiction an example of what he'd be like now, I'd rather shoot him myself than put it back."

"But like it or not, it's part of him."

"It _was_ part of him."

"So," the old Hunter said quietly. "You're believing this whole 'God cured me' story?

The question brought Dean to a halt. "You aren't?"

Sitting back heavily in his desk chair, Bobby toyed with some of the papers lying in front of him. "Honestly, I don't know. It makes sense, sounds good…."

"But?" Dean prompted.

"I don't know, maybe I'm just a jaded old fart, but usually when something sounds too good to be true, it ain't."

"If he hadn't come back with baggage, I'd be right there with you, but Lucifer is pretty good at screwing up people's plans. Am I surprised he's thrown a monkey wrench into Sammy's great escape? No. He'd do anything to give good ol' 'Dad' a headache." Bitterly, Dean added under his breath, "And it doesn't surprise me any that God's playing dumb about it either."

Bobby snorted sourly and went back to his reading. "It ain't God that's got a headache."

A few hours later, Sam came in with a woman slung over his shoulder. She was bound with iron manacles and unconscious. There was a trio of scratches across his left cheek where she'd clawed at him. He was out of breath and obviously exhausted. Downstairs his twin was insane with the need for a fix, and weakening far faster than they'd anticipated. Sam2's deteriorating physical condition was weighing heavy on Sam. He helped Dean get the she-demon down to the panic room but did not stay to watch, retreating upstairs to catch his breath. It was Dean and Bobby who cracked the door open and shoved the girl inside. They barely got the door shut and locked again before Sam2 was there pounding on it.

"No! Don't do this! Take her out! Please!"

Dean looked at Bobby askance. "Not what I expected to hear."

They peered inside at Sam2, who stared back anxiously. "Please," he whispered, wiping sweat from his brow with one sleeve. Beneath the dirt and dishevelment he looked deathly pale. "I don't want to do this. I can't control it. I don't want…it's him…" One shaking hand rose toward his temple. "He's here, whispering, wanting…"

"Who is, your buddy Lucifer?" Dean growled.

"No…I…don't…."

"You know what? We don't really give a crap, so just give up the drama. You're not human. You're nothing but a festering wound that destroyed my family, and I'm going to find a way to cut you out of my brother once and for all."

Sam2 flinched as if he'd been slapped. "No," he whispered. "You….Dean. Please…." He groaned suddenly, doubling over and clutching at his gut. At his feet the demon girl had begun to stir. "Get her out of here!"

"Bon appetite, you son-of-a-bitch."

The demon sat up slowly, flinching away from the walls and any of the many sigils painted upon the floor. At first she looked disoriented and confused, but as her gaze finally found Sam2, her expression shifted into one of abject terror. "You!" she said.

Sam2 moaned. "Oh, God, help me!" His body shuddered, his breathing became labored. "It's coming. It's coming!"

Seconds later the demon let out an ear piercing shriek. She tried to run, but there was nowhere for her to go. Sam2 grabbed her by one arm, wrenching her around to face him. Her manacled hands came up in an effort to defend herself, her demon strength making her far more formidable than any human girl, but even that was not enough. She was half the size of her attacker. He pinned her up against the wall and shoved a hand up under her chin to push her head back. Dean quickly shut the window. He could hear the she-demon's wailing screams, underscored by moist, ripping sounds. Someone else might not have recognized those sounds for what they were, but Dean did. He'd heard them many times before – the sounds of tearing flesh.

After a minute or two the screaming stopped abruptly.

Bobby looked grim, his lips taut, his face pale. "I repeat," he said quietly. "I'm not liking this, Dean. Something is stickin' in my craw about it. I just can't figure out what exactly.

Dean shook his head. "I don't know, Bobby. It's far out there, this whole thing, but how do you define that in this job? Everything is outside the box." He sighed. "Let's not overthink it. Let's just find a way to break the tie and send Bad Sammy back to Hell."

With a soft snort, Bobby jerked his head toward the stairs. "So, which one would that be, exactly? The Sam who purposely sacrificed an innocent girl to a monster, or the monster that murdered her?"

"It was a demon."

"Boy, you've been doing this how long?" Bobby pointed at the door. "Yes, it was a demon, but there was a human in that meat-suit right along with her. Sam may have started out saving victims with his hoodoo tricks, but draining them of blood kills both demon _and_ host!" He lowered his voice again, softening as he continued. "He knew it too, Dean. What he did, throwing himself in the Pit to stop Lucifer, was just as much suicide as it was sacrifice. It was retribution."

"You're right," Dean said hoarsely. "Of course you're right." He ran his hands over his face. "I just don't know what else to do."

Bobby let out a deep sigh. "Okay," he said wearily. "I'll find something, Dean. We'll figure this out."

Dean nodded. "You go on. I'll be up in a minute."

When Bobby had gone, Dean went back to the door and opened the window. Inside, the demon's body lay in an untidy heap. Her throat had been torn open. The way she lay, with twisted limbs and tangled hair also left no doubt as to whether or not she lived. Sam2 had drained her blood and snapped her neck before tossing her aside like a discarded wrapper. The analogy wasn't off the mark. The demon, and the girl it rode, were nothing but packaging. It was the kill and the blood he'd been after. Nothing else mattered.

Sam2 himself sat on the floor directly opposite the door, leaning back against the wall. He looked up when he heard the window open. Fresh blood stained his face, hands and clothing. He had made no effort to clean it up. As Dean watched he slowly drew himself up to his feet and crossed the room until he stood before the door eye to eye with his captor.

"I'm begging you," he croaked. "Kill me. Please."

Dean shook his head. "No," he replied gruffly. "I can't do that."

The doppleganger's eyes darkened. His face twisted in fury. "You stupid son-of-a-bitch!" it spat. "Kill me!"

"No."

Sam2 attacked the door, kicking, clawing and shaking it with every bit of strength he had, strength amplified by the demon blood he'd just consumed. Belying his Herculean efforts to force his way through the door to get at Dean were the words he screamed over and over again.

"Kill me! Kill me! KILL ME!

Dean shut the window and turned away.

* * *

The house was finally quiet. For the second time in two days Sam had fed their captive, disappearing into the night and returning with an unconscious she-demon. Her screams had echoed throughout the house, along with the sounds of Sam2's berserker rages. For the second time in two days he ripped out her throat and bled her to death, before begging Dean to kill him.

"It's playing on your sympathy, Dean. It wants me dead, and it really doesn't give a rat's ass if it goes to Hell." Sam handed Dean a cup of coffee. "On the other hand, I'm not real thrilled with the idea of going anywhere, least of all back to prison." He gave Dean a wry smile. "You've gotten soft."

"I just don't like it when things wearing your face beg me to put a bullet in them," Dean replied quietly.

"It's not me. It's just a construct, a golem made out of psychic energy and a hunk of DNA. It just looks like me."

"That's the point. It looks like you," Dean sighed. "I just…we're not getting anywhere with this! Bobby hasn't found anything – so we're going to throw that thing demons every day for how long? They aren't just demons, Sam. They're _people_!"

Sam regarded him quietly. "You don't have to stay, Dean. I know how much you miss Lisa."

Dean shook his head. "No. I'm not leaving you and Bobby here to deal with this mess alone."

With a chuckle, Sam poured himself a cup of coffee. "I've been chasing this thing around for over a year now without any help. I think I can handle it. It's not like it's your responsibility."

"Isn't it?" Dean asked, setting his cup down. "Sam, you're my brother. It doesn't matter if I'm out here Hunting, or eating cupcakes at a PTA meeting, that's not going to change. And if I'm enjoying the hell out of those cupcakes, it's because you pointed me in the right direction. I at least owe you the chance to get your life back on the right path, okay?" He ended somewhat breathlessly. "I'm staying."

"Nice outburst."

"I thought so." When he caught his breath again Dean asked, "So when this is over, and we've dumped Lucifer's Sam-Clone back into the pit, what will you do?"

Sam shrugged. "I dunno. Keep Hunting I guess. There are still demons out there, a buttload of rogue angels, and the usual evil sons-of-bitches. I'm not like I used to be, Dean. When God cut out the demon's taint, I changed." He nodded toward the basement door. "That's where all the negative stuff went, but there's still a lot of angst left for me to deal with. I'm a good Hunter, and it's better to take my crap out on the bad things out there – at least for a while."

"Not to mention the fact you've been keeping the bad things off my back."

With a smile, Sam nodded. "Yeah, there's that. A lot of it is just because they're scared."

"You defeated Lucifer, escaped a prison he couldn't get out of, and are leaving dead demons everywhere you go. Of course they're scared." Dean moved to the fridge, which was nearly empty. Bobby hadn't been shopping for a while apparently. It was a Saturday night, nearly morning. If he'd have been home he would have been up in just a few hours, making pancakes. Lisa loved blueberries. He shut the door and settled with refreshing his coffee. "Let me ask you something though."

"Sure."

"You said it wasn't more than twelve hours before God cracked open the door and yanked Michael out."

"It wasn't."

"Your buddy downstairs disagrees."

"Really?" Sam drawled coolly. "What did it tell you?"

"That it was years." Dean looked him in the eye. "I know how Hell skews time, Sam. Was it years for you?" When Sam didn't answer immediately he added. "If you're trying to protect me or something…."

Sam laughed, but there was an uneasiness to it that bespoke falsehood. "I wouldn't believe anything that monster tells you. The portal opened up in Stull just after noon. I was out before midnight. That's less than twelve hours here, and still an insignificant amount of time there."

"Do you remember anything?"

A muscle tightened in Sam's jaw. "No. Not really. There was darkness, and then a bright light…and I was out. Lucifer was gone. I was clean. But something wasn't right."

"How'd you figure it out?"

Sam's eyes grew slightly vague, as if recalling the moment. "I knew there was something missing inside me. When the clone killed for the first time, I felt it. I felt the craving, and I felt the surge of power the blood brought with it, but I didn't gain anything." He shuddered slightly, and his eyes refocused. "In knew then there was something else out there draining demons, so I went hunting for it."

"And found Mr. Hyde," Dean replied.

He was about to say more when he heard the muffled sound of music playing. He recognized the tune as the ringtone from his phone and reached behind him to pull it from his back pocket. It was the old phone he'd been using since he'd left home, but the number on the caller ID was new – one not programmed into his contacts. He recognized it though. It was Lisa.

Dean moved away from Sam into the living room. He might have gone into the library but he could see Bobby there asleep on the sofa, a book open across his chest. Instead he made his way toward the foyer, and sat down upon the stairs leading to the second floor.

"Lisa?"

"Dean, thank God." The relief in her words, and her voice, was obvious. Less obvious was the strain Dean sensed beneath them. "I've been calling the other number…."

"I left the phone in the car. What is it? What's wrong?" He hadn't talked to her in weeks, and not once since he'd found Sam in Flagstaff. That she would call this number at all was cause for alarm, and mentioning the fact she'd _been_ calling – Dean's shoulders tensed. Fear grabbed hold of his heart and shook it hard. "Lisa, are you and Ben okay?"

"We're fine. Dean, a man was just here…."

"What? What man? Who was it?"

"I don't….I don't know. He said he was a friend."

"You didn't let him in the house did you? Tell me you didn't let him in the house!" Dean had set up additional wards around the house and along the entire perimeter of the property before he left, but there were creatures that could bypass even the tightest defenses, if the homeowner willingly allowed them entrance.

"No. He just got in on his own. I don't know how, he was just – there." Lisa was calm by nature, not much rattled her, but Dean could tell she had found this home invasion disturbing. "He's gone now," she said, trying to calm _Dean's_ fears. "Everything's fine, but he told me to call you. He told me you were in danger."

"I'm fine," Dean said, calming somewhat. "I'm at Bobby's. We're….I don't know when I'll be home, Lise. I…."

"It's okay. But Dean, I believed this guy. I'm scared something is going to happen to you. He said it was urgent I called and give you a message."

Dean frowned. "Why couldn't he deliver it himself?"

"He said he wasn't allowed," Lisa said. "And something about your bones I didn't understand."

"Bones?" Dean muttered, and then tightened his fist around one of the stair railings. "Lisa, this guy, what did he look like, kinda rumpled and nerdy looking?"

Lisa let out a breath. "Yeah," she said, obviously relieved Dean might actually know her late-night visitor. "Dark hair, blue eyes….kinda cute actually."

"Yeah, he's kinda cute all right, unless you piss him off." Dean's shoulders slumped, the tension slowly leaving his shoulders like air from a leaky balloon. "Let me guess, he was wearing…."

"A natty looking trench coat," Lisa finished for him. "So you do know him?"

"Yeah. It's Cas, Castiel."

"Castiel? The angel?"

"Yeah."

"Whoa." Lisa laughed uneasily. "That's pretty cool."

"What was the message, besides the fact he thinks I'm in danger?" This did concern him. If Cas predicted Dean was in danger, Cas was usually right on the money.

"He said, _'killing the cur starves the flea, but starving the flea does no harm to the cur_' and then he quoted me a line from _Star Wars_. I only recognized it because we just saw the movies again."

A million possible meanings for Castiel's message began running through Dean's head, and none of them were good. "What was the quote?" he asked.

"'_Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them._'" When Dean didn't respond, Lisa prompted. "Dean?"

"Lisa," he said roughly. "I have to go."

Hanging up the phone, Dean got up and went back to the kitchen. Sam was still there, drinking coffee, waiting for his brother to return.

"Who was it?"

"Just Lisa," Dean said, but he did not stop. Instead he went to the basement stairs. "It's too quiet down there. I'm going to go check on him."

"Don't waste your time. I'm sure it's fine, Dean."

"I'm gonna check anyway."

He took the stairs two at a time, a feat which underscored the fact he was out of shape. He was out of breath by the time he reached the panic room door. He wrenched open the little window and looked inside. For a moment he couldn't speak, couldn't acknowledge the suspicion Castiel's message had raised, nor the implications if it were true. When he did find his voice, it came out in a hoarse whisper.

"Sammy?"

The filthy, bedraggled figure sat upon a floor smeared with blood, his hands limp in his lap, his head bowed. At the sound of Dean's voice he looked up at the window. His eyes filled with tears. His expression was pleading. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Tell me – what happened? How did you get out of Lucifer's prison?"

Sam2 shook his head wearily. "I don't….I don't know. Everything inside my head….everything is ….wrong. I can't….think."

"Try, Sammy. Try to remember what happened."

Raising a hand to his head, Sam2 closed his eyes and winced as if the memories hurt him. "It was dark. Then it was light and….then the pain was gone." His eyes opened. He gasped softly. "There was a house…..you were there inside, with…Luh…Lisa?"

"Lisa," Dean confirmed. "Yes. It was that night, the night you….left."

Sam2 nodded. "I almost went to the door but…" He stopped, his face twisting in pain.

"But what?"

"I don't know. I never made it. Something….there was something in the shadows. I smelled blood, demon blood, but I didn't want it then. I was clean until…." He didn't finish. Dean's prompting couldn't even jar the memories loose. Ultimately he looked up at Dean and whispered, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Sammy, don't be sor…." Dean stopped. He stared carefully at the weary, pain-ravaged face staring back at him and noticed something that made a cold chill ran up his spine. "No scratches," he whispered. "Your cheek…."

The truth hit him like a punch to the gut, making him almost physically ill. If he hadn't suspected before, he now fully understood what Castiel had been trying to tell him, and a whole lot of little niggling things coalesced into the puzzle piece he hadn't known was missing. "You're not the flea," he said. "You're the cur!"

The reply came from behind him.

"The what?"


	9. Collision Course

Dean whirled at the sound of his brother's voice. Sure enough, Sam stood there watching him. Immediately Dean's eyes were drawn to the scratches across Sam's cheek, scratches left behind during his struggle to capture the first demon girl. These wounds should have been mirrored on the other Sam's face, but weren't. He had lied to Dean. The link between the two Sams didn't work both ways.

"Nothing," Dean stammered, trying to buy himself some time to think. "Just some little insult we used to throw around as kids."

"Uh-huh," Sam said. His eyes narrowed. "Come on, Dean." He sighed. "I told you not to believe anything that thing in there tells you."

Dean did a quick inventory of weapons at his disposal, and came up sorely lacking. His gun was upstairs in his coat pocket. All he had was Ruby's knife, tucked away in a sheath at his belt. He sidled away, angling for the stairs. Sam turned with him, subtly blocking his way.

"I don't," Dean said. "Can you move?"

"No, and that's crap, Dean. I can see it in your face." Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, whatever it's told you is nothing but a lie. It's trying to sucker you into letting it go. Don't be…"

"Is Cas lying?" Dean asked sharply, interrupting. "You know - God's angel? Would he lie to me?"

Sam's brow dipped. "Castiel?"

"He left me a message, dropped me a few hints on what the score really is, _Sam_." The sarcasm in his voice made Sam flinch slightly. "Is it really what's in there that needs a fix, or is it you? I don't think you're who you say you are. You're not Sam, at least not the real one." Dean wrinkled his lip in disgust. "You're a parasite, sucking up juice from his kills."

"What?" Laughing, Sam shook his head. "Come on. It's me. How many tests do I have to pass?"

"You said it yourself – holy water and devil's traps don't work."

Sam pointed at the panic room. "On _that_!"

"Or you. One of you is the real Sam, one of you is the whatever you want to call it – golem, clone, doppelganger. I'm calling it a leech, and I think it's you." Dean began pacing slowly back and forth. "I'm a fool all right, but you're the one doing the foolin'. I should have seen it right from the beginning. Walt and Roy should have tipped me off, but like you and Bobby keep reminding me, I'm more than a little off my game."

"Walt and Roy deserved what they got," Sam growled.

"Did they?" Dean asked. "Oh, don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have shown up and kicked their asses around the block a few times, but I wouldn't have killed them. Sam wouldn't either. You know why?"

"Dean…"

Ignoring him, Dean answered his own question. "Because they were victims, just like us. They were put down in just the right place, at just the right time to send us to Heaven because God had a message for us. Remember?" He stopped abruptly and gave Sam a quizzical look. "Or do you? You know a lot, but then like most evil twins, you're probably stealing memories from the real Sam." Dean resumed pacing. "Sam wouldn't have killed them for doing what they thought was the right thing. He knew what he'd done. He knew he'd have to pay for it eventually – and that's another thing."

"What?" Sam didn't even try to deny the accusations this time, but watched Dean warily, his tense body language saying it all. "What's another thing?"

"If you were the real Sam, you wouldn't have wasted time keeping tabs on Bad Sammy for over a year. You would have killed him the first chance you got, but you didn't, because you needed him alive."

"Killing him would have killed _me_, Dean! I told you…."

Dean interrupted, this time raising his voice. "So you think, after doing what he did to stop the Apocalypse that my Sam is afraid of dying, of suicide?" Dean stopped pacing again and this time took a few steps closer to what he now believed was the true enemy. "Sam would know what it would mean if Lucifer got another foothold here on Earth. He _would_ have killed himself to get rid of you if _you_ had let him. And he sure as hell wouldn't let two innocent girls die just to save his own skin. My brother isn't like that, and you…." Dean's voice lowered to an ominous growl. "Aren't my brother!"

Sam's eyes narrowed. "How sure are you about that, Dean? Remember, what happens to me, happens to him."

"I'm this sure," Dean said, and whipped Ruby's knife around, aiming for Sam's broad chest, and the heart beating inside it, Castiel's paraphrased words ringing through his head.

"_Starve the flea, save the cur."_

He wasn't fast enough. Sam's arm came up to block the knife, while the other made a quick waving motion. Dean thought, _"Here we go again!"_ as he was lifted off his feet and thrown back into the heavy iron door of the panic room. The blow knocked the wind out of his lungs. He gasped for breath that wouldn't come. When he heard a shout from Bobby upstairs he couldn't yell back.

Sam half turned and threw up a hand toward the stairs. Dean heard the door slam shut, followed by muffled banging as Bobby tried to get it open. The old man called his name, but Dean still could not answer.

"You can never just leave well enough alone, can you, Dean?" Sam said quietly.

With another flip of his wrist he sent Dean's body twisting through the air to crash into the opposite wall. The cheap wooden paneling gave beneath his weight and his shoulder struck the concrete beneath it. Something snapped – his collarbone – and he let out a yelp of pain. He collapsed to the floor, holding his left arm to his side. The pain radiated through his shoulders, down his back and his arm, and for a long moment it became the center of his universe. There was nothing else but pain until Sam's voice drove it back.

"You know, I'm not heartless. I was more than willing to let you go home, back to playing house with your Yoga instructor and her little bastard. As long as you kept out of my way, I'd let you go about your business, while I went about mine." Sam chuckled. "I didn't count on the demons tipping you off by being scared shitless of getting anywhere near you. But that was a nice bonus, wasn't it? You should be thanking me, brother."

Dean snarled. "You're not my brother."

"But I am, Dean. Genetically I'm absolutely identical to your beloved little Sammy. Hey, I'll take a DNA test to prove it," he smiled ominously. "If we had time, that is."

"You're even not human!"

"Hmm…maybe, maybe not. Definitions can be tricky things to pin down sometimes, especially in our line of business, and especially since we're still not quite sure what Sam is these days. Plus it's all in the semantics, isn't it?" Sam had begun to pace himself, like Dean had been earlier. He stopped and frowned. "I'm sorry, is that word too big for you?" He smiled again and went on. "I hate to disappoint you, Dean - it wasn't God who saved your brother. God pulled his little pet Michael out, that's true, but he would have left Sam there to rot."

As he spoke and paced, Sam had gotten closer. He now stood directly in front of Dean, who he "shoved" back into the wall with his mind. Tears of pain sprang to Dean's eyes but he bit down on a cry. He held himself still, defiantly refusing to shift his gaze from that of his tormentor.

"Sam isn't cured, Dean. The same blood that runs through his veins runs through mine and oh, yes, it's tainted. There's no way to change that. It's way too late." Sam cocked his chin up slightly, giving himself an air of arrogance that was perfectly suited. "We're conjoined twins, only we're connected…" He raised two fingers and tapped his temple. "Here, and I'm calling the shots. I have all the software. He's just the battery, the whipping boy for my addiction. This is Lucifer's brilliant new plan and Sam's punishment for betrayal. It's genius." Leaning in closer, he got up in Dean's face. "Lucifer will rise again, and this time he'll have a strong and willing vessel ready and waiting for him. I'll say yes and mean yes."

"So," Dean rasped. "You were just going to lock Sam up and feed him demons until then?"

Sam- the golem - laughed again. "For now, yes, but I won't need to forever. Haven't you noticed? The more he consumes the stronger I get, but unlike my twin back there, I never seem to lose my charge. I don't suffer any of the side effects, but reap all the benefits, and one day I'll be strong enough to break free of him completely." The golem made a mock frown. "Unfortunately, our brother Sammy won't survive the separation."

Dean opened his mouth, but no words made it past his lips. A noise caught his attention, a rattling noise coming from across the room, and he turned his head slightly to look. The big iron door was shaking in its frame, sending a shower of rust out over the floor. A horrible screeching sound filled the room as the bolt began to slide back. As Dean watched the shaking increased. The false Sam caught on and turned his head to look.

With a rush of air and a loud, reverberating "BANG!" the heavy iron door blew open as if it were made of cardboard - corrosion had finally taken its toll. Dean saw a massive shadow fill the doorway, blinked, and suddenly found himself looking at not one Sam, but two. The second, who Dean now knew was the real Sam, loomed up behind the first, his demonic black eyes blazing with an unnatural light.

"I'm not dead yet you son-of-a-bitch."

Sam grabbed the golem by the back of the shirt and both physically and psychically threw him to the ground. He didn't stay down long, but was immediately up again, facing off with his twin. The two of them circled each other. Sam growled, literally. His eyes remained black, but the uncontrolled rage did not take over him as it had before. This time he stayed in control and conscious of his actions.

The golem wore an amused expression. "I underestimated you," he said. "Your brain should be mush by now."

"Tearing you to shreds doesn't take higher math," Sam sneered. "You shouldn't have screwed with my brother." He cocked his head, "At least not where I could hear you."

"Struck a chord, huh? Shook loose a few memories? How touching." Bad Sam flung out a hand and grabbed Sam by the throat, lifting him off his feet. "But you are missing a few brain cells, Sammy. You forgot – I just charged you up, and that only helps me." With a single thrust he sent his foe tumbling through the air to land heavily inside the iron room again. "And I just love it when you're pissed!"

The door swung closed…

But not completely.

Sam's efforts to keep the door open would fail, Dean realized. The twin would siphon off his strength, draining him until one outweighed the other and the door would slam shut. Someone needed to tip the balance in his brother's favor. Dean figured that someone was going to have to be him.

With all of the attention focused upon the battle over the door, Dean was able to free himself, making a mad scramble for the knife lying abandoned on the floor. Impeded by his wounded shoulder he couldn't drop and roll back to his feet as he would have normally. Instead he skidded across the floor on his knees like a rock guitarist might slide across a stage, grabbed the knife, and twisted around to slice open the clone's hamstring.

The golem let out a howl of pain but managed to keep his feet. He did not, however, keep his hold on the door. It burst open again and Sam rushed out. His clone thrust out a hand and knocked him to the floor before turning his attention toward Dean. An angry snarl twisted his features as he limped after his quarry.

"You son-of-a-bitch! You're a dead man!"

"You always talk about our mother like that? Shame on you!" Dean said breathlessly. Turning, he pushed the knife across the floor. "Sammy! The knife!" Once the weapon was away he lurched to his feet.

Physically the golem missed a grab for him, but psychically he fared much better. Dean found himself flying – again – and this time with more than enough force to do him some serious damage. He slammed into the stairs, letting out a scream of pain when his broken collarbone snapped completely and the ragged ends of bone pushed up through the top of his shoulder. He crumpled into a heap at the bottom step. Blood began to run down his arm.

Sam grabbed for the knife Dean had sent his way – and missed. It rose off the floor and sped across the room into clone-Sam's hand. Dean groaned. Behind him, from the top of the stairs he heard the sharp crack of a pistol firing, but so did the golem. Seconds after the knife slapped into his open right hand, he turned toward Bobby and smiled. The bullet stopped in midflight, and fell harmlessly into the outstretched palm of the golem's left hand.

The room seemed to fall into a hush. The only sounds were Sam and Dean's ragged breathing as they watched and waited to see what Sam's look-a-like would do next. What he did, was simply smile.

"Game over," he informed them. "I win."

"Oh, think again asshole."

From his position at the top of the stairs, Bobby squeezed off a second shot.

Both Sam's clone and Dean realized where he had been aiming at the very same moment, and both of them cried out at the same time. The golem whirled around, dropping the first bullet and reaching out for the second, but this time his telekinetic grab failed. Bobby's aim was dead on, and the bullet sailed over the golem's shoulder, beyond his ability to stop it. Wise to what was happening Bobby had shot Sam, the real Sam, in the chest.

The golem staggered. His eyes widened as he watched his twin collapse in a limp sprawl upon the floor, and soon he too was falling, first to his knees, and then to the ground. Ruby's knife slipped from his hand with a clatter. Both man and weapon came to rest at Dean's feet.

In desperation the golem reached out toward Dean, his expression one of abject terror. Bloodstained lips moved, he gasped out one last attempt to claim Sam's identity while choking on the blood filling his lungs.

"Dean! Please…it's me…it's…."

Without a word, his face void of expression, Dean bent and picked up the knife. "Tell Lucifer," he said roughly, dropping to one knee at the dying clone's side. "We hope he's enjoying his vacation." His expression was cold as his fingers closed tightly around the weapon's hilt. "It's about to be extended."

A quick stab through the heart ended a life that shouldn't have been.

The life it had tried to steal, still hung in the balance.


	10. Cheap Beer and Conversation

To:deano

From: eddiemunster

Subject: On the Road Again

Dean,

I've been cleared for take-off. See you in a few days.

-Sam

To: eddiemunster

From: deano

Subject: re: On the Road Again

Bring beer.

* * *

Dean was actually mowing the lawn when an old Ford Taurus with a bad muffler pulled up to the curb in front of the house. Between the loud roar of the mower and hearing damaged by a lifetime of using guns, he hadn't heard the car approaching; although every neighbor within a three block radius did. It wasn't until a long, dark shadow crossed his path and he was nose-to-bottlecap with a six-pack of really extraordinarily cheap beer, did Dean realize he had company.

He stopped and turned off the mower.

It had been six months since he'd seen his brother, after leaving him in Bobby's hands a few days after the death of Sam's "evil twin." Sam had spent twenty-four hours in the hospital getting his chest sewn up, and then Dean and Bobby took him home and locked him up again. Dean had wanted to stay. Bobby and Sam insisted he didn't. Sam, in fact, begged him to go.

"_I don't want you to see this."_

"_Sammy…I'm your brother."_

"_Exactly. Go. Go home, please."_

Dean called Bobby three weeks later.

"How is he?"

"Bad," Bobby said, and added. "Do not come here, Dean. I mean it. I ran your old man off once, and I will run you off too if you set one foot on this property."

"Bobby, if he dies…"

"He wants to, believe me, but he ain't. I won't let him. So go power-wash the deck or something and don't call again."

After another grueling two months passed, Dean finally got a text message from Sam. All it said was:

_I'm back._

Now Sam himself stood in front of him holding a six-pack of cheap beer and grinning sheepishly. Dean ignored the beer and nearly bowled him over with the fierceness of his sudden embrace.

The neighbors be damned, his Sammy was home.

Sam managed to stay on his feet, and save the beer. "I like breathing, Dean."

Dean pulled back, examining him carefully. He looked – like Sam – clean shaven, hair washed, clothes neat and tidy. The ragged monster he'd been six months ago was completely gone, at least to the naked eye. "You okay?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah, uh…clean. Cleaned _up_, obviously." Nodding, Sam gave him another wry grin. "I'm good, Dean."

"How's the head?"

The smile faltered just slightly. "Head's….still a little foggy."

"Still a few gaps in the memory banks, huh?"

"Yeah, and I'm thinking…maybe that's a good thing?" Sam looked away briefly. "I remember enough, enough to know I've got a lot to pay for if I want to get back on Santa's 'Nice' list."

"It wasn't your fault, Sam."

There was a haunted look in Sam's eyes, one that Dean had seen before – in the mirror. Hell had left its mark.

"Doesn't matter," Sam whispered. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I've sorted through what I do remember. We _were _dealing with a golem. Lucifer suspected God would yank me out - he told me once, 'Dad is a sucker for self-sacrifice,' so he planted his 'bug.' The golem rode out with me, and split off as soon as I got back. That's where things start getting fuzzy."

"That's when it started screwing with your head."

Sam rolled his shoulders, sighing deeply. "It wasn't hard. All it took was one slip, Dean. One taste and I was gone. God gave me another chance, and I blew that too." He worried at his lip with his teeth. Dean recognized reluctance, and thought he wouldn't continue, but he did. "It wasn't forty years, Dean. It was only four."

"That's more than enough."

"Yeah, I know. It….isn't the same Hell you experienced, you were right about that."

"It was worse."

"It was _different_," Sam corrected. "It was a prison. Cold, dark, confining, and what you saw locked up in that room at Bobby's – that was what I'd become there too. What the golem told you was exactly the opposite of the truth. He wasn't the demon, I was. He was made from the last bit of humanity I had left." The haunted look returned briefly. "Even Satan had given up on me. How screwed up is that?"

Sam, you don't have to…."

"No, I don't, and I won't. I just….you need to know….I'm _not_ cured, Dean. I can still slip up, but I'll fight it with everything I've got because I already owe a buttload of retribution, and I don't want to go back there again, I can't." He met Dean's eye. "I'll be gone for good if I do."

Dean squeezed the handle of the mower, anticipating what would come next. "Sam, you just got here, don't do this to me."

"It's important, Dean."

"You're going to ask me to kill you."

"I am, because it won't be me anymore, and I won't be able to come back if it happens again. I've played all my cards. How many times can God look the other way?" Sam's expression hardened. "Promise me, Dean, and this time mean it."

"Sam…."

"Promise me!" A brief flash of anger made Dean flinch, which in turn brought tears to Sam's eyes. "I don't want it to be Bobby, or some idiot like Roy or Walt. I _need_ it to be you, Dean. Please."

Dean shook his head, tears in his own eyes and a lump in his throat. "You and your damn promises," he said hoarsely. His ability to speak failed him then, and all he could do was nod. "Just….don't let it happen, Sammy."

Sam inhaled a deep breath, and let it out with a sigh. "I wish I could give you my promise it won't. I can't, but like I said, I'm going to try damn hard to make sure it doesn't come down to that."

That was all Dean could ask for, but he still felt a chill deep in his heart. After all they'd been through, after all he'd seen _Sam_ go through, he knew what would happen if his brother fell victim to the demon taint again. There would be no other option. If it happened again, Dean would kill him.

Sam stayed for dinner. Afterward, when Lisa, the baby and Ben went to bed, the brothers Winchester retreated to the front porch to have a drink of that really cheap beer. The mundane conversation held in the presence of the family, gave way to subject matter more honest and less appropriate for "civilians."

"I wish it were true," Sam said quietly. "That the demon blood was gone, that God cared enough to get rid of it for good, but it's still there. I can feel it."

Dean, leaning on the porch railing, stared off across the unfinished lawn. "I don't think even God could pull that out of you, Sammy. If he did, you wouldn't be you anymore. You were six months old when the demon came. What he did to you, as bad as it sounds, helped make you who you are."

"A freak?"

"My brother."

Sam smiled ruefully. "Thanks for that." He sighed deeply. "I almost gave up you know, more than once. Getting clean this time was – rough."

"Glad you didn't," Dean replied softly.

"You know what kept me going?"

"No, what?"

"It was after a really bad spell. I'd ripped out some of the sutures in my chest. Bobby hauled me in to the emergency room coughing up blood and still convulsing. I don't know how he got me out of the basement."

"Bobby's pretty resourceful, and he's a tough old bird." Dean raised an eyebrow and whispered conspiratorially. "I think he moonlights as Batman." He cocked his head, frowning. "But he looks more like a garden gnome."

Sam laughed.

"So anyway…." Dean prompted.

"So anyway, the hospital sewed me back up, pumped me full of sedatives – which didn't work, by the way – and strapped me to a bed for almost a week on complete life support. I was laying there twitching and moaning and wishing to hell I'd just freakin' die already, when Bobby shows up. He just goes on about this and that for a while, and then says, 'Oh, by the way, Dean called. That girl he's with is pregnant.'"

Dean smiled slightly, recalling his return home, when once again he'd showed up on Lisa's doorstep looking like a dog that had been kicked to the curb. His whole left arm and shoulder had been wrapped up in bandages and confined by a sling, there were still bruises on his face, and he'd lost all the weight he'd gained during the time he'd stopped Hunting. Lisa later likened him not to a dog, but a battered old Tom-cat with only one eye. Then she told him she'd missed her "monthly" two months in a row, and it had gone completely over Dean's road-weary head.

"Your monthly what?" he'd asked.

Lisa had looked at him with a worried expression. "My….are you okay?"

"No. Not really."

"I hate when you say that."

"Then why do you ask the question?"

"I'm always hoping for a better answer."

It was then that he'd broken down and told her what happened, and not just during the time he was away, but everything, starting with Sam's death in Cold Oak through their dealings with Lucifer and the Apocalypse, and ending with their most recent ordeal. He told her details he'd never revealed before during some of his sketchier confessions. He told her the truth. He told her _everything_.

"You think I'm nuts, but I swear, it's true. Every word is true," he'd said. "And now….I don't know if Sammy's going to make it. I'm going to lose him again, Lise. I can't….I can't go through that again. I can't"

He was such a wreck afterward it had been three more days before she finally told him what she'd been trying to get across before. She was pregnant, and this time, without question, the child was Dean's. His life with Lisa and Ben suddenly had a greater purpose, and if he'd had any doubts before about being needed, they fled the first time he held his new daughter.

Just a few weeks before Sam's email telling Dean he was coming, Lisa had given birth to a healthy, robust baby who came into the world kicking and screaming, and big for a little girl. Big, loud and stubborn – Dean promptly dubbed her Samantha, which both flattered and annoyed her uncle.

But, as they stood on the porch drinking beer in the moonlight, Sam confessed it was the baby who had saved his life.

"I thought, 'crap, now I have to pull through this.'"

"Again, I'm glad you did, but why did that make a difference?"

Sam looked at him like he was an idiot.

Dean stared back, uncomprehending. "What?"

"The way I figure it," Sam explained. "I've got a reputation to maintain." He met Dean's gaze. "As long as I'm out there, I swear, nothing is going to bother you or your family, not ever."

"You're going to keep Hunting." Dean resisted the urge to moan. "Sammy…"

"It's not going to be easy. The temptation will always be there, but I don't need to be out there killing demons to get the job done, you know? Fear is mostly psychological. If the things out there just think I've got big mojo, that's all I need." With a shrug, Sam concluded. "I'm not the two point one kids and a dog type anyway, Dean. I don't think I ever was."

"You just haven't met the right girl."

"No, you're wrong, Dean." Sam's voice softened. "I did, once, a long time ago." He paused. "And they took that from me too. I'll always wonder what she knew, if she just wasn't another one of them sent to keep an eye on me."

"Sam, don't. She was just another victim."

"Like Mom? Look what we never knew about her. She made a deal, and she died. What kind of deal did Jess make?"

"You don't know…."

"That's right. I don't." Sam's voice grew rough. "All my life, through all this crap that's happened to me, to us, there's only been one person I could trust, who stuck with me when god knows he should have smothered me in my crib."

"Oh, come on…." Dean hid his own emotion behind a large swallow of beer. "I wouldn't have smothered you. I would have sold you on the black market."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. You know how much money you can get for a cute little imp like you were as a baby? It's like twenty grand per dimple. Anyway…." Digging into his pocket, Dean produced a set of keys and handed them to Sam. "Here."

"What's this?"

Dean tipped the neck of his beer bottle toward the Taurus at the curb. "If you think I'm letting you go out on the road in that piece of crap, you're out of your mind."

"It runs okay."

"It's a _Ford_, Sam." Dean snorted. "No brother of mine is going to be driving around the country in a freakin' Ford."

Sam stared down at the keys in his hand. "Thanks, Dean I…." His brow creased. "Dean. These aren't the keys to the Impala."

"I said you weren't driving a Ford, I didn't say you were driving my Chevy." With a tilt of his head, Dean indicated the driveway. "See that import over there…."

"Uh….the pink one?"

Dean grinned. "No, Sammy, it's _Champagne_." He clapped Sam on the shoulder with much affection. "And she's all yours. Oh, except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"I get to keep the baby's car seat."

They looked at each other, quietly savoring the moment. It was obvious to both of them this would be the last time they'd see each other for a very long time, if ever again. Sam would stay on the road, and away from Dean. Anything else would put Dean, and his family, in danger. They both knew it, and both chose to accept it, a fact which surprised both of them as well.

After a moment Sam closed his hand around the keys. His smile was a bittersweet echo of Dean's own. "Okay," he said softly. "You've got yourself a deal."

* * *

So...

If you've gotten to the end of this fic and are wondering to yourself, "What in the hell kind of title is _Cranberry Sauce_ for this story?" then keep reading. There is a method to my madness.

In 1969 a rumor/hoax/theory surfaced regarding one of the most influential bands in music history – the Beatles. According to this myth, Paul McCartney was killed in a car accident in 1966, and rather than reveal this to the public and their fans, the Beatles secretly replaced him with the winner of a look-a-like contest. Supposedly "clues" to prove this was true could be found in the Beatles music itself. One of the most famous of these clues came at the end of the song _Strawberry Fields_ _Forever _where John Lennon could be heard, quite clearly it's said, uttering the words, "I buried Paul."

When they heard of this rumor, the Beatles of course tried to set the record straight, and when asked, both Lennon and McCartney both claimed John had _not_ said "I buried Paul." What he'd really said was – yep, you guessed it –

"Cranberry Sauce."

As always, thanks for reading.

-T


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